A Good Laugh

Young Boy Drumming Courtesy of All Posters.com

A joyful heart is good medicine,

but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

Have you ever noticed that boys have more stories to tell about how and when they got into trouble than girls do? They are funny and charming in their way - as long as no one ultimately got hurt! It makes me wonder why they are so impulsive. They don’t stop and think about the consequences to a dare. Boys are curious and just act on a thought like, “What would happen if we tied a firecracker to a salamander and lit it?” Or “What would happen if we cracked a raw egg on our heads?” As a girl, I would have thought through the general idea of what would happen and wouldn’t care to try either scenario. But, my husband tells me those were some of his musings as a boy with his friends. Of course, they were more than just musings - he did them both as a boy.

My father-in-law sent me a letter with just such a story and his thoughts surrounding it. I got more than just a good laugh, but it made my week!

Dear Amy,

I was looking through a “California Lawyer” magazine recently and saw this picture [below] that reminded me of a story about your husband….I got to the back cover and saw this advertisement for Mr. Terry O’Reilly’s personal injury law firm. Mr. O’Reilly was once our neighbor when we lived on Hubert Road and it caused me to recall an event which took place where your husband was five or six years old.


One evening Mr. O’Reilly appeared at our door in an agitated state. He said a couple of young boys were seen by another neighbor (probably the nosey “cookie lady” who lived in the house next to his) scratching his brand new Volvo with rocks. I called Matt down from his room and Terry said yes, he was one of the boys, the glasses confirmed the identification. Well, I was ready to dump a full load of bricks on Matt because I felt that was the best way to stop kids from doing dumb-headed things, but my reaction was tempered by my neighbor’s presence. I asked Matt if he had done this. With great chagrin, he said that he did. I asked him why he would do such a thing for he certainly knew better. And here is the interesting part of the story – he said, “Dad (very subdued), I was just practicing cursive nothings.”

Matt on the left around 7 years old

This had the effect of adding a slight confusion to the situation, which is always good for the accused person. Cursive writing is a part of learning after all, and this word, which isn’t used every day, is coming out of a six year old. That was enough to carry Matt through the moment. I told Mr. O’Reilly to get his car’s paint job restored and to send the bill to me. (Which to his credit he did not do.)

I think the incident shows that your husband has been able to provide a reasoned response in a tight situation from very early one, and, as we can tell from the legal ad, this event didn’t dampen Mr. O’Reilly’s love of automobiles! And finally, I hope that this will be Matt’s last brush with a personal injury lawyer!

Love,
Dad

Coincidentally I received this letter during a week that Matt is on jury duty with a U.S. Federal District Court case. He has been listening to a few lawyers and he would have made a great one himself, which we often talk about. I can rarely win a verbal argument but he has learned to lovingly listen to me first, even if he could reason it out much better and know he has the more persuasive point.

I got a good laugh at the letter and the advertisement. As I read it to my daughter, she couldn’t believe a "smart kid" like her daddy would even do something like that…rocks scratching a car? “Why didn’t he get a piece of chalk and hit the pavement? Boys don‘t seem to think things through.” Her Papa (Matt’s Dad) lovingly responded to such a level-headed girl, “Tell Lizzy that, as they get older, smart boys realize that we have this thing called civilization because of girls. Smart boys want to relate to girls properly and that helps turn them into humans.”