Being funny gets tougher

I have this thing about wanting to be funny. I really like making people laugh.

Not sure exactly how that started; probably discovered I could do that in high school and it made up somewhat for not being popular. I remember being able to make a dripping sound with my mouth in my math class and how great everyone thought it was that the teacher would look up at the ceiling trying to find a leak on a perfectly sunny day.

I've never been much for telling actual premeditated jokes. I'm much better at responding in a funny way to what other people say. Some people call that wit. I don't usually do that, having found it doesn't take a lot to add half- or nit- to -wit.

I do find that as I get older, it gets more difficult to be funny — or at least to be perceived as being funny. In my mind, I'm a riot. Other people's, not as much.

It's more difficult to be funny at work. I think it must be because I'm getting older. No, wait a minute ... because everyone else is getting younger. Yeah, that's it. Someone'll say something and I'll come back with a dynamite snappy retort. And then I just get "the look." It's a look that says, "OK, we're going to smile and nod, not wanting to insult you, but hoping maybe you'll go back to your own desk now."

Finding my medium's been a problem, too. When I worked at KVEC Radio in San Luis Obispo about a hundred years ago, the program director told me I was more of a visual act. Considering I was in radio then and in the newspaper now, I may have followed the wrong calling.

In any case, I still love making people laugh. There isn't a better feeling in the world. Well, maybe one or two better feelings. But not many more than that. OK, three tops, but that's it.