J. Davy Crockett III

What plays out in our daily news today would have been very shocking only a few years ago. We hear and see things in the news that violate all civil rules for good taste and decorum. Social mores and acceptable behavior have changed dramatically in less than a generation.

What happened to the "functional" family? You know, the one with a Dad and a Mom and children centered around the home, doing the things families do: working together, playing together, laughing and sometimes crying together.

It was just a faded snapshot, a long-forgotten picture of my grandfather and his three sons, leaning on their vintage car in front of the family's farmhouse in the Arkansas Delta. It must have been about 1933 or 1934.

A hearty laugh is good for us.  Something truly funny, that tickles our "funny bone" and causes us to laugh out loud, has a calming, stress-relieving effect on us as human beings.  Scientific studies have shown the benefit of hilarity and good humor on our health and well-being.  And yet, much of what passes for humor today has a bite to it or the laugh is at the expense of someone else. You might say, "Laughter, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so what difference does it make?"

You'll never meet an "average" person. Oh sure, someone might be referred to as "average", but no one ever sees himself as average. Every person is unique.  Certainly, there are some commonalities, but each human being is made up of the genetic hand he or she has been dealt, along with life's experiences, environment, culture, religion. etc. Some individuals excel in life and stand out, others live their lives in "quiet desperation" as spoken of by the poet Thoreau.