A sense of humor is a serious matter

Lou Marzeles
News Editor

     A sense of humor is an important commodity; you can even use it to gauge human nature. For example, you don't see a lot of funny dictators. Hitler never started a speech by saying, "OK, this guy walks into a bar..." And let's take a quick look back at last year's election campaign, when both John McCain and Barak Obama appeared at the same event, which was essentially a laugh-off. Each tried to out-funny the other, and I hope I don't make too subtle a point when I say that McCain was a riot while Obama came across studied and a little too practiced, as if trying to sound funny rather than actually just being funny.
     If a political figure takes himself as being all seriousness, you can pretty much put a red flag on him. And we might well be able to consider the same as being true of most people. One can certainly take things with appropriate seriousness and still have sufficient lightness of mind and heart to not carry that seriousness as if afraid of breaking it. People who are that overly serious can, ironically, be funny, but it's not the kind of funny that you like.
     Walk with me now along this trail of thought around the barn back to Goldendale. I've said it before and you might as well get used to me saying again and again: it's a great city, with uncommonly good, kind people. I don't have to say that. I don't even have to be here, but I want to be, because (have I mentioned?) it's a great place. And having said that of my newly adopted home, I can add, with affection and perhaps a little good-natured humor, that sometimes some people here just take themselves much too seriously.
     I'm actually talking about some businesses in the area. I don't know any individuals of whom I can make these statements, but I'm overwhelmingly aware of some businesses that seem to think that the best way to protect their bottom lines is to crawl into a mental foxhole where it's nice and safe. Not for them the fray of uniting with all the other businesses in town, not one of which is any less concerned with their own bottom lines, in the interests of a greater good. This is a greater good that is accessible only by involvement, interaction, a willingness to be part of a team seeking a common victory.
     History at every level, whether it's of a sports team or of a country, continually reveals that the effort to preserve one's own individual interests at the cost of the welfare of a larger whole ultimately damages both the individual and the whole. That's not at all funny.
     Part of what excites and intrigues me about being here, and just arriving three months ago when we had that all-day planning meeting about the future of Goldendale, is the inescapable sense that the city is on the cusp of something extraordinary. For the sake of all, that should happen.
     How many Goldendalians does it take to change a future?
     All of them.