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TITLE: A Good Laugh | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dot Hannah
10/15/14
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A Good Laugh
October 15, 2014

I recall the adventure so vividly, now over fifty years ago, the crime a source of recurrent laughter for my family. However, the story should be told from my perspective, as seen through my eyes, not theirs. After all, the whole episode struck me as somewhat humiliating, and at the time, my young mind couldn’t reason why. No prank was intended. I had spoken the words eloquently, just as I had heard my daddy speak them.

It was in the summer of 1960, a different era, and prior to the turbulence which would come to define the coming decade. President Eisenhower was in office, but Senator John F. Kennedy had announced his candidacy. Ted Williams had just hit his 500th homerun. The Beatles had just formed a rock band in Liverpool, England. I knew not of, nor cared about such things. A hot, sultry day in a tiny, country town, freckled faced and innocent, my best friend and I, no more than six or seven, had played hard all day, thrashing through fields, jumping fallen trees and wading mud holes. Our families had no worries of the dark acts which take place today. Everybody knew everybody and looked out for one another.

Only when we were exhausted and had grown thirsty, did I concoct a grand idea. A wonderful smile lighted my face. We dashed into Papa Shorty’s store, as he was affectionately known, acting big and brave, with faces aglow. After whispered consultation, I gathered steam and drifted toward the drink box, carefully lifting out two RC soda pops. I turned toward the counter, peered cautiously, and casually said, “Charge it.”

The response exceeded anything we could have anticipated. Immediately, an unexpected roar of laughter exploded from the room full of men, as I looked with a puzzled expression, my face as pale as a sheet. I thought to myself, “Did I say something funny?” We paused momentarily, turned and left, childishly eager to escape being laughed at, screen door slamming behind us. I hadn’t recalled daddy receiving such fanfare when I had heard him say the same thing. We slowly walked off sipping our sweet treat, bare feet leaving prints in the soft dirt. My round eyed friend was impressed, as we gaily skipped past somber looking cows in the pastures on our way home. Confounded, I was to hear the story told over and over again from my good humored dad, as life whizzed by. How joyously happy he became when he told it. It was to be a few more years before I understood why it was so comical.

As a child of God, I liken this story to the fact that all my wrongs have been charged to the account of Jesus. I not only have apprehended salvation, but His account is unlimited. When I have a need, any need, all I have to do is make a withdrawal and charge it to His account. I believe there are times when He probably laughs at me when I say or do something ignorant, because I think He has a sense of humor. He enjoys a good laugh just like my daddy.

“Come all who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”(Isaiah 55:1) NIV

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