Levitating Levity
Okay, I’ve blogged environmental awareness – no response. I’ve blogged political responsibility – no reaction. Guess we need something to lift us out of the desperate straits in which we are immersed.
When the need for a laugh arises, I think of my departed buddy Jerry Jones. Jerry had an infectious laugh, no, an infectious cackle. Two episodes come to mind. The first was when Jerry and TR (Tom Richards, we know had a name he was too embarrassed to divulge so we call him TR and wonder what it could be year after year) were driving south of Kingston on the Olympic Peninsula. They were looking for a golf course nearby where we were scheduled to play within an hour or so. Spying a man walking along the highway towards town, Jerry said, “Ask that local. He’ll know where it is”. When they pulled alongside, their jaws dropped. I was that local. My car gave up the ghost half an hour earlier and I was hoofing it back to the ferry dock. Jerry could never suppress a cackle when he thought about the odds of running into me wandering along that Gog forsaken road at eight in the morning. And I didn’t know where the hell the golf course was either.
Another time, after a four-day tournament in Reno, we all headed back to the airport in four different vans. When my group checked in and was headed towards the gate, we heard Jerry’s unique cackle coming from a bar. On entering, there was Jerry and Jack Dunbabin doubled up in laughter.
When they finally became coherent again, Jerry said, “Jack was asking if I knew what happened to…uh…you know, old what’s his name…the guy with Alzheimer’s.”
That story never ceased to generate a laugh every time it came up, even when I related it at a memorial service for Jerry. Jerry was also famous for giving putts longer than anyone else dared. To this day, there are “gimme’s” and there are “Jones gimme’s”, two distinctly different things.
Jerry’s exploits are legendary but they all have two things in common, they never disrespected anyone and they always uplifted our spirits. He was a wonderful source of levitating levity.
