Memoir Review: The Way of of Laughter

Although not always politically correct, "Cheaper by the Dozen" provides an opportunity to explore the impact of an imperfect father upon his family

For the love of a joke

My father loved to laugh. He agreed with the Reader’s Digest that laughter is the best medicine. So when teenager Dave Ross began working with my father at Schumacher Lumber Company right after high school, helping him make screen doors, my father fell in love with him.Or rather, with his endless collection of jokes. 

It wasn’t Ross’s long hair or biological connection to the most liberal and popular Mennonite pastor in Hartville. Knowing my father, I suspect that inspired him to add Ross to his prayer list.

We loved Ross long before meeting him because every day, Dad would come home with a new joke. We all loved jokes, and Ross was an absolute master. With a dead-pan flair, he would deliver them with pitch-perfect timing, tossed between the screams of a power saw and the roar of the power riveting gun. 

That night, with a twinkle in his eye, Dad would repeat Ross’s latest joke. And because I suspect Dad was a master joke-teller and practiced his delivery assiduousl…