I
happened one afternoon to pick on a young woman I knew only slightly from
seeing her around the college campus from time to time. She would eventually become my wife, but that
winter day as I sat down across from her at a large oak library table my major
intent was just to get her to talk to me.
She
didn’t look up while I removed my jacket, sat down and arranged my books and
notes.
I
let a few minutes pass before I spoke.
“You
know,” I said, “I was a beautiful baby.
My mother entered my picture in numerous contests.”
After
a few moments, I pulled out my favorite baby photo, passed it across the table
and waited for her response. The baby in
the photo was really me. And I was
really ugly. Or so everyone told me. Actually, I thought I was kind of cute, but
admittedly not very cuddly. In the
snapshot I was well past six months of age and as bald and chinless as a white
zucchini. There was a remnant of drool
on my chin, probably just wiped away by Mom before she took the shot. The girl glanced at the photo, but pointedly
did not touch it.
I
waited for some kind of verbal response. It was not forthcoming. From previous victims of this ruse I knew her
reaction might be anything. Some folks
surprised me. A lady pastor at a funeral once turned away from me and began a
conversation with the corpse. But most
often I’d get a laugh, or a quick darting of the eyes my way as if to ask if I
was serious. Not often there were hollow
words of admiration and fawning smiles worthy of an acting award. In any case, the ice would be broken and I
might find a new conversation partner with a sense of humor. Or not.
This girl had done no more than glance my way
with raised eyebrows suggesting I was crazy.
I stayed quiet and bided my time, occasionally looking up from my reading
to secretly admire her hair, her nose, whatever. Finally she tilted her head up at me and
asked if I knew what time it was. She
made no attempt to hide her wrist watch,
“You
know,” I said, ignoring her attempt to take me off my path, “I always wondered
who took the photo.”
“Why?”
she said. “Did you want to get even with
them?”
“I
had thought,” I said, “my father was the only person in our house who knew how
to use a camera in 1943. But my Dad
thought of himself as an artistic photographer and shot everything at weird
cockeyed angles. This picture was just a
straight snap shot.”
The
girl looked up at me again. I could see
the beginning of a smile. Only the
beginning.
“So,”
she said, “your mother didn’t want the photo any worse than it had to be and
shot the picture herself.”
“Yes,”
I said. “But when I asked her why
she took the photo, she said she knew I’d grow up very handsome and this would
prove a person could start anywhere.”
She brought the photo closer to her with one finger
and stared down at it with a furrowed brow.
Then she looked up at me, a sparkle in her blue eyes.
“When do you plan to start?” she said.
When I look back to my younger days, I often wonder
why I thought I was funny. In business I
found few people who thought my jokes humorous and most believed I was just being
silly. Probably a few had the insight to
see my attempts at humor as no more than a plea for anyone to notice me.
There’s always something going on when we look
deeper. We often use humor to hide
something or hide ourselves.
The joke may be a veiled revelation of feelings we
want to express in a straightforward manner but for some reason cannot. In the library that afternoon, I wanted to
say, “Let me take you home to my nest and we’ll stay there forever.” But of
course I couldn’t. My humor covered up a
desire on my part that would have been inappropriate to express in our first
meeting
Humor can sometimes hide a plea for help, but probably
more often we’re asking for approval.
Perhaps most pressing as a young man was my concern
over what others thought of me. Now that
I’m older, I care far less. Whether I’m
worthy of anyone’s praise is for other people to worry about. I don’t need to know what people think of me
unless they are carrying a weapon.
Because I wanted to be likeable in my youth, I often gilded
the hard things that needed to be said with humor, thus diluting the
truth. It was not easy to tell someone
they were making a mistake, for example, when I was too interested in whether
they liked me. If I told you what you wanted to hear, because I cared more
about what you thought of me than my desire to help you, then I became a
caretaker for your issues. Your dilemma had been yours, but when I sugar-coated
it, I became a kind of co-conspirator for a problem neither of us needed.
Had I persisted in the use of humor to help us put off
a direct approach to disputes, for example, I would not have maintained very
many honest relationships. I would not
have said to my siblings things that needed to be said. Or corrected a co-worker in the few instances
over a lifetime of employment when it was honestly necessary and did some
good. Or admitted a fault or an offense
for which my spouse rightfully held me accountable. Or neglected to tell any of those people I
loved them.
I have
found it better to spend more time worrying about the welfare of others rather
than engage in a guessing game about what they think of me. And what they may think of me is, in the
final analysis, of no consequence to me at this point.
I
eventually grew some hair. Not a lot,
but enough to keep my brains warm and thinking.
However, I never trust a decision I’ve made in January. I depend upon the girl from the library to
lend some sanity to my life.
To be
honest, Mom never entered me in a Beautiful Baby Contest. You probably guessed that, or thought her
less than sensible. But years ago as a
joke I posed as a proud mother and sent my baby pictures in to a few
contests. Only one person ever responded. He was from a local business association and
we were acquainted. Robert’s letter said
he’d been given my application and my baby’s photo for extra-special handling.
“What
a striking baby you had!” he wrote. “You
must have been terrifically grateful.
That it didn’t bite you. Did you
keep it?”
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