Being Silly

Once when I was having a conversation with my daughter, she said to me, That is what I like about you Mom, you can let yourself act silly.  That thought came to me one day when I was sitting in my doctor's office in the waiting room.  I was looking at a magazine and there was an article about dressing up for Halloween.  The question was asked, " What is the silliest thing you have ever worn on Halloween?"

At first I thought about the things my  children and more recently what my grandchildren had worn.  It took a few minutes for me to remember my own dressing up for this fall event for the fun of children.  Then it hit me, I had dressed up!  It was for an event  with our faculty party.  Some of us were putting on a skit about a fictional place called "The Lizard Lounge".  I was asked to dress up as a bar maid for this so called Lounge and to be in  costume as this was on Halloween.  I had to scrounge around to find something sleazy and silly.  I found something and because it was so out of character my husband took a picture of me.  Luckily I had on a mask and hoped no one would recognize me.

Another time I pulled a silly stunt when I was in college.  I played on the girls field hockey team.  We had uniforms and they were short.  One evening the girls were all hanging out in the dorm and one girl was cutting the hair of another friend.  The floor was covered with hair.  I asked if I could have the hair.  They all thought I was crazy but gave it to me.  I went back to my room, put on my field hockey uniform and some long hose.  Then I proceeded to glue that hair all over my legs, all around. 

Then I sauntered down the hall and casually walked into the room where my friends were hanging out.  It caused quite an uproar !  They made so much noise it attracted the attention of all the other girls and we had the whole top floor of Burnham hall full of girls laughing and having a generally riotous good time.  I cannot remember if the house mother heard us and came up.  Mostly she ignored our noise unless there was screaming going on.

During the time that I grew up we did not go out on Halloween night.  Possibly because we lived in the country and it was in the l930's and no one felt like being that frivolous then.  My older siblings did have parties at our house and dancing took place.  They would have parties to make fudge, then put the platter on the widow sill to cool.  That was too much of a temptation for the younger kids and they frequently would slip by and snitch some of it.

Kids seem to like to play silly games.  And I have known many grown-ups who had their moments.  My mother was know to throw decorum out the window from time  to time.  One of my brothers-in-law would keep us younger kids entertained for hours with his witty songs.  And what was Vaudeville about if not just plain being silly, and down right outrageous?  Comedian Steve Martin had his arrow in his head routine, Jack Benny had his sideway look and Bill Cosby could really roll those eyes.  I am willing to bet that every human being who walks this earth has at some time, done some really endearing and positively, absolutely silly things.

So, I declare that there is a place for being silly.  Laughing is supposed to be good for us.  Someone said it was like jogging on the inside.  And the kids would prefer some  to seeing a frown.