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I've always looked at the world with a slightly skewed angle. This can result in laughing when no one else does. This trait, I'm sure can be blamed on my father.

One of his favorite radio shows was Can You Top This? It featured Morey Amsterdam and a list of top comedians from the 1930's, 40's, and 50's. Please remember that he and my mother grew up in an era without widespread media communications. Their entertainment was jovial bickering. The radio allowed them to listen to comedy and remember the jokes. If they could apply it to real life, it was like scoring. Below is one such incident. You'll notice, I'm the only family member that laughed.

BUM ENCOUNTER

December in Phoenix can be downright chilly to a desert dweller. While not as cold as my native state of Iowa, it was still chilly; the temperature was in the lower 40’s. A stiff desert wind was whipping through the concrete streets. We, my older, college educated brother, younger, brother, my father, and I all were clad in winter coats as we window shopped the store fronts while we waited for my mother to end her shift at the one and only cafeteria in town.
I was sixteen that winter and in my sophomore year of high school. Mother would bring me to Phoenix for the winters as Iowa proved deadly to my health. My father and brothers had joined us for the Christmas season.
Daylight was rapidly disappearing and the streets lacked the usual number of shoppers. Phoenix was smaller then and many stores closed by 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. The restaurants and theatres would remain open, but shoppers and workers hurried home for their evening meal.
One person across the street caught our interest. His coat wasn’t the heaviest and you could see two different sweater patterns protruding from the bottom edge of his coat. He was as hat less as my thirty something visiting California educator brother and younger brother. I had seen the man previously at the city bus stop where I caught the bus home after high school. The man was trying to cage dimes or quarters from people waiting for the bus or walking by. I couldn’t resist sharing my knowledge.
“That man bums from people. I hope he stays on the other side.”
As if on cue, the man looked up, saw us, and jaywalked across the street. My older brother must have looked prosperous in his woolen overcoat, woolen muffler, and James Dean profile. As the man approached us, he had his hand out asking for a quarter to help buy his meal.
My father, Iowa farmer that he was and remained until his death, was clad in a mackinaw, plaid hat with flaps that came down over the ears and his overshoes. He was walking in front of us by a couple of paces. He looked up long enough to deliver this edict.
“Get back to your own side of the street. This is my side.”
To say my brothers were taken aback states it mildly. Older brother Norman became slack jawed, the younger, Gordon flushed a fiery red, and I was biting my tongue to keep from laughing.
“Oh, sorry,” said the man and obligingly crossed back to his side of the street. When the man had crossed back over, I could release my smile and low laughter.