The Little Dog Laughed To See Such a Sight and the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon

I am taking a break from lamenting the state of our society in order to publish another Constantine story. Constantine as some of you know, was my father. He died over 13 years ago. While I believe in the eternity of heaven, I also believe in preserving memory and the creativity of those who have died, on this earth. That's probably why I read journals, and autobiographies and biographies with such intensity. I love to "meet" and get to know men and women who have been gone many years, even centuries. Their lives, in a way, are extended by my learning of them and passing my new memory onto others. 

Dad should have been a known writer. He was talented and prolific. But life has tides and eddies such that not everyone who should be known creatively, is known. My little blog entries of his material is my small way of trying to keep him and his life out there.  I am the last in the line of his branch of the family. I have had no children. I have no siblings. So, it is the least I can do to keep a thread of the man, a most complicated, charming, angry, brilliant man out there, here in the mortal realm.

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED TO SEE SUCH A SIGHT AND THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON

Laughter is more than a muscular response to the autonomic nervous system.  It is a human necessity, a knd of cathartic, something that produces an endorphin--a feeling of wellness.

Now, in the winter of my earthly journey, I do not hear the sound.  It is muted by the cacophony of a noisy mechanical world, its fairy-tale substance submerged in the false truths and revelations of modernity--soundless aginst the coarse bass instruments of today's indirection of purpose.

Laughter is not just a sound.  It is a Being--God generated and inspired. She is the daughter of Zeus--yes, she is a female--Euphrosyne--literally the Greek word for mirth. She is a spirit that delighted with romping for the amusemets of her fellow Olympians.  She and her sisters were the Graces who danced to the meserizing lyre of the immortal Apollo, and delighted the gods, and occasionally grateful beatified mortals.

Once, in anothr environment, she came to Sarah, the childless wife of the Patriarch, Abrahman, and father of a nation.  Sarah was impelled to laughter when she was told by angels that her ancient body would bear a son.  She named him Isaac, which is the Hebrew word for laughter.

In our present day we have replaced Euphrosyne with a kind of imitation laughter--one produced by wires and speakers that can produce laugh sounds--from a titter to a chuckle, thence to a mass of sound of approval in sheep like appreciation of a joke, or the disoriented gyrations of a spastic clown or a pratt fall. 

A renowned producer of comedy left the theater showing his presentation, distraught.

"We didn't get any laughs," he expostulated.  "I know the places where the audience laughs.  Maybe it's because they had to pay over a hundred dollars for the seat."

The laughter I remember to this day cost me ten cents.  That was the fee for a round trip ride on the Staten Island Ferry.  There I heard an echo of that Olympian grace.  It came from my companion.  We stood, close together at the bow of the ship, and the soft sea breeze caressed her hair-gently, lovingly.  I said something that pleased her and she laughed.  It was a sound that came from the cavernous depths of her loveliness, indescribable as to pitch, soft and soul enveloping as it would round my heart and then--it escaped into the limitless space wherefrom it was born.