Laughter, the Best Medicine" is the topic for Week Thirty-three over at my journal prompts blog, AnceStories2: Stories of Me for My Descendants. Who in your family shares your laugh? Do you sound like one of your grandparents? What about a cousin, aunt, or uncle? Who giggles like you?
I don't know about the sound of my laughter in comparison to my ancestors or relatives, but I can tell you one thing: The women in my life could laugh with the best of them over absolutely positively nothing! I can't tell you how many "slips of the tongue" peels of laughter occured amongst us women. You know what I mean: Someone says something but got the words mixed up, like saying "Grixed Meens" instead of "Mixed Greens". Very often after a slip of the tongue like that, we women would chuckle.
FIVE minutes later, after the goof was long forgotten, two of us would look at each other and burst into fits of laughter. We're not talking giggling. We're talking "where's a chair I gotta sit down cuz I'm laughing too hard to stand up", laugh-til-we're-crying type laughing.
Every woman in my family that I remember would have this phenomenon. When it'd start, the men would just leave the room with a "there they go again" statement on their way out.
To this day I can't have a laugh like that and not feel close to the women of my childhood.
Paternal grandmother, Mary HODICK, presumably before her marriage to Joseph McHUGH in 1925.
On the far right, my mother's first cousin Jane WILLIAMS and my maternal grandmother, Regina (DOYLE) O'ROURKE.
My mother Regina (Jean) O'ROURKE (on the left) in about 1946.
My mother Regina (Jean) O'ROURKE (on the left) in about 1946.
My mother's sister-in-law Joyce.My father's sister, Noreen McHUGH.
1 comment:
I know what you mean about the "slips of the tongue"--my grandmother used to talk about "Satan's fiery darts"--until she slipped once and it was our joke ever after. Isn't it great to have those moments?
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