Sunday, May 30, 2010

Walk like an ostrich

If laughter is the best medicine, I consider my talent for walking like an ostrich as medicating many wounds throughout the years. I'm not certain exactly when was the first time I walked like an ostrich but I'm guessing that it would have been sometime in the early '60s while I was horsing around with my younger brother and sisters. That MCS (middle child syndrome) meant that any time I garnered attention, I would milk it until it was dry. I could really make those siblings laugh... especially if it was at me. I can remember running through the living room to the kitchen and around and around with my awesome ostrich walk, leaving my audience in tears.

One of the best moments was sometime around 1980. I was working at the data center for a downtown bank. The area for the data entry clerks was along a busy street that had tinted windows all along the block. One could not see inside as easily as one could see from the inside out. As I was returning from lunch one day, I decided to give the clerks a good laugh. As I walked by their area, I broke out in my famous ostrich walk. It is a guaranteed knee-slapper and this round was no different. As I went back to their area, they were still laughing at how someone would be so stupid as to walk funny down a busy street. Anything for a laugh I would always say. But about an hour later, I received a curious phone call from my mother. "Why do you walk down the street like a duck?" she inquired. Astounded that she would confuse an ostrich walk with a duck walk left me speechless but to ask what ever did she mean. She went on to say that she was returning to the recital hall at the college to begin the afternoon of judging piano guild auditions in the Permian Basin. She had the president of the National Guild of Piano Music with her, as well as couple of area high-profile music teachers and they were also returning from lunch. As they were stopped at a red light, my mother noticed that her daughter was walking down the street. She pointed me out to the others in her car and then became horrified to see me walking like a duck! I then had to endure a litany of how embarrassed she was in front of "those people" and it occurred to me that perhaps they completely missed my name, but they will ALWAYS remember Dorothy's weird child (or one of them).

One year I went on a retreat with several of my church friends. Our return trip had our conversations very engaged in the many enlightenments we received that weekend. Not thinking it odd when I found out that one of my spiritual gifts is my hospitality, I quickly wowed the group during one of our drive-to-the-bushes potty break with my famous ostrich walk. I felt it was divine intervention when I was able to make a person laugh who was so consumed with her problems and how to solve them. She hadn't had that much fun since her teens -- and she was in her 60s. I love it when a plan comes together.

Even as my immediate family gathered one year to celebrate my mother's 94th birthday, as we were leaving the restaurant I displayed the famous ostrich walk just so the grandkids could see a part of history. Right there in front of Pappadeaux's the ostrich tradition was sealed in their innocent minds. Actually, the older I get, the funnier it is. I'm not sure why that is.

I'm proud to be such a simpleton eager to be the jester before the court. A good chuckle is worth a hundred times inspiring words. And I'm just glad to help dish it out. Now, I'm thinking that an ostrich walk is much funnier than a duck walk. There are many people who naturally walk like ducks, but an ostrich? Now that's funny!

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