SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER


Laughing at Life

By Julie Carter

As long as we are still drawing a breath, we have the opportunity to keep learning life's lessons, big and small.

For myself, I have found that grasping some of the simple lessons are often the most rewarding. One of those is learning to laugh and laugh in abundance.

Laughter is a precious gift. It dislodges anger in the way a summer rain washes the dust from the landscape. It fosters friendship and dilutes hostility. Medical science says laughter helps the healing process.

A willingness to laugh is the first step to the joy of laughter. Seeing humor in situations may take practice for some, for others, it is an art.

I laugh at myself as much as I laugh at anyone or anything. Sometimes I'm the only one who thinks I'm funny, but that too makes me laugh.

Knowing the difference between a mishap and a catastrophe is important, as is understanding that likely you can do nothing about either, except pick up the pieces. Your choice is to laugh about it or grumble. Choose laughter.

Almost every situation benefits from the application of laughter. People take themselves way too seriously - looking for perfection or a way to be indispensable and in complete control. They set themselves up for a life of stress and failure.

Self-appointed superintendents of the world work way too hard at jobs they will never complete.

I have friends who make me laugh. I laugh with them, at them and we all laugh at almost everything.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be and so if I keep friends who remember more or differently than I do, there is a never-ending series of topics to laugh at.

Success almost always happens in private and failure in full view. So laugh at it. No one shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. If you smile when things go wrong, people will undoubtedly be assured you have someone in mind to blame.

Laughter is contagious. If people nearby aren't laughing with you they are at least curious about what is making you laugh. They will want some of the same.

Euphoria is fleeting at best and needs fed continually to sustain beyond the moment.

The skill is not in the emotion but in the ability to keep it going. You can always find sorrow in the world; finding joy sometimes takes effort. Make the effort.

It might even hurt a little the first time, but crack that smile wide open even if you have not yet found something to smile about. It won't be a terminal pain.

Surround yourself with people who find joy in life and like to laugh. You will learn to laugh by association. I can promise an addiction to the joy. You will want more of it.

Laughter is a gift to be shared. When you have learned to laugh, help someone else that needs to feel the fun. That quick laugh you share with someone today may be the spark of joy that turns his day from ordinary to special.

Plan to be spontaneous, even if you wait until tomorrow. Joy comes with no expiration date.

© Julie Carter 2006


Wildfire Smoke

Wildfire is a fascinating thing to many people. Couch potatoes will leap from their recliners, jump in their cars, and drive miles into the country just for a distant glimpse of one.

Television camera crews throng to vantage points where the action of roaring helicopters and airplanes can best be viewed to capture the action everyone wants to see.

As I write this, a California wildfire called the "Day Fire" has consumed an estimated 159,000 acres, $53 million in expense, and 18 buildings. The fire is less than half contained despite the best efforts of 4,290 personnel trying to save hundreds of homes threatened by the fire.

The Day Fire is only one of more than 83,000 wildland fires this year that burned more than 9 million acres at a cost of about a billion dollars for suppression and will probably cost another billion for post fire restoration. About 4 million of the acres burned this year were owned by the United States Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. Another 4 million acres were state or private lands.

In 1995 (when 2.3 million acres burned) the federal government spent $250 million suppressing wildfires. In 2005, they spent $875 million and 8.6 million acres burned.

Since the year 2000, seven federal agencies and more than a dozen western states have worked cooperatively to do something about the fire hazard in the West. The joint effort was spurred by a government report about millions of acres of public lands at risk from catastrophic wildfires (not normal burning fires, but ones that present extreme fire behavior due to excessive fuel loading). Nearly 400 million acres (federal, state and private) were targeted for high priority treatment.

During this century, fire suppression costs have doubled over the previous five year period because natural fuels and rural residents continue to build. A recent government report estimates there are now 44 million homes in the continental United States built where urban areas meet wildlands (called the "wildland urban interface").

Suppression costs are frequently divided between the federal governments and state governments according to land ownership of the burned area. Montana fires this year burned 829 thousand acres and cost more than $60 million to fight. The state's cost was $36 million. "We just can't be nice about this anymore…It's a serious problem and it’s only going to get worse," a Montana official said in a news reports. Because of rising fire protection costs, Montana may put pressure on counties to reduce the number of dwellings being built in or near the forests.

South Dakota spends far less than Montana to suppress wildland fires, but South Dakota fires consumed only about 5 percent of the acres that Montana lost this year to wildfires.

The federal government also spends significant amounts on fire research. California researchers recently found that livestock grazing can reduce fuel loads, lessen the severity of wildfires, and do it cheaper than mechanical treatment. They studied that for ten years.

Ain't it amazing what people will "study" just to avoid asking someone who already knows?

Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture


Elderly Couple

An elderly couple is lying in bed one morning, having just
awakened from a good night's sleep. He takes her hand
and she responds. "Don't touch me!"

"Why not?? he asks."

She answers back, "Because I'm dead."

The husband says. "What are you talking about? We're both lying here
in bed together talking to one another."

She says."No, I'm definitely dead."

He insists. "You're not dead. What in the world makes you think you're
dead?"

"NOTHING HURTS".