Memoir Writers Homework/Humour.

I love humour of most,but maybe not all kinds.As a writer it's something I strive for.Because I love to laugh,it would be great to be able to make others laugh.In fact,it's one of our God given rights to laugh.And while I'm invoking God's name,I'm convinced God has a sense of humour.How could anyone who created Giraffes,platypuses,Jeff Foxworthy,Jeff Dunham and me,not have had a sense of humour and wanted us to laugh?

Humour,to me needs not to be mean spirited,though it may cast us,or any group of us in a humorous light.But I've always had my limits.Some things are not funny.Like AIDS jokes,for instance that started making the rounds in the 1980s.I never want to reinforce the joke teller of a "joke" like that. The same with jokes that are racially degrading.

I always wanted to preform stand up comedy and,eventually,I got my wish.I sat down,wrote some jokes,tried to memorize them,then got up in front of an admittedly rather friendly audience at a club I used  to haunt in Edmonton,Alberta and let her fly.The whole thing was more or less a success.The crowd laughed.I'd prepared about 30 one liners and managed not to forget them.I don't know what I'd have done if there were any hecklers.I'd asked my friend,also a comedian,and a much better one than I,to keep an eye on the crowd and try to find out what jokes got the best reaction.It turned out my featured stuff wasn't near as funny as some of the jokes I wrote mostly as filler.Here is the one they liked the best,according to my friend:"There are some things the Bible doesn't come right out and say.Like that part where the snake got us all off on the wrong foot-and snakes don't even have feet-and God made him crawl on his belly for all eternity.Well,God must have been really chocked with the aardvarks...he made them suck ants through their nose."Howls of laughter,according to my friend,though I thought some of my other jokes were better.

I like to laugh at myself too.I am a big man.By big,I mean big around.It's called generously proportioned.Well,one time I was getting into my friends Smart Car,and having a bit of trouble.He says to me, jokingly,"if you were not so well endowed you could get in with no problem."

"Really",I replied,"are you sure you didn't mean"generously proportioned?"

"What's the difference?"

"Let me demonstrate by using both words in a sentence for you."I'm so generously proportioned,I can't tell whether or not I'm well endowed."Howls of laughter,I hope,because I might like to do stand up again sometime and I can see a place for that one in my routine.But as for humour in my writing,I suspect it's still a work in progress.You be the judge.