By Ken Welborn

Record Publisher

As I walked with Laura Gentry across the lobby of the Walker Center this past Saturday evening, I wondered who would be at our table for dinner before the Hypnomania show.

Once again, I got lucky.

We were seated with Shirley Asa and her beautiful granddaughter, Katie, and with George and Charlotte Edmiston and their daughter and grandson, Jenny Lynn and Ryker.

It was as pleasant a dinner as I could have asked for. You could cut the prime rib with a fork, and the company was like a fine dessert.

Shirley Asa greeted me with a smile that would have warmed the heart of a stone statue. In the 70s, when Shirley lived in Wilkes the first time, she and her husband, Bob, were wonderful friends of mine. I have whiled away many a long winter evening as a guest in their home on the W. Kerr Scott Lake. They moved away in 1980, and Bob passed away in 1993. Last year, Shirley moved back to Wilkes to be close to her daughter and son-in-law, Janet and Joe Johnson, and her pretty granddaughter I mentioned earlier. We reminisced about the 70s, and then went back even further because Katie's father is George Monroe Johnson, Jr.; Joe to most, but always Little Joe to me. Big Joe, of course, was his dad, the longtime proprietor of the Community Grocery on Hinshaw Street, and a friend to every kid who ever walked through his door.

It was also wonderful to visit with George and Charlotte Edmiston. They kept me smiling and reliving the past with stories about Elk Creek and Ferguson. George was a brother to Dare McNeil, as sweet a soul as you could ever hope to meet. Dare's son, Jack, is a longtime friend of mine and, as a teenager, I spent a lot of time in their home. I enjoyed uncounted tasty meals, courtesy of Dare, which were almost always followed by a round of storytelling by her husband, Chelsie. By the time we finished eating Saturday night, the Edmistons and I had talked about everything from moonshine to Moon Pies, sawmills to sorghum, chickens to cattle, log cabins to leather britches, and bootleggers to Baptist preachers.

It was positively delightful.

And then, just before the Hypnomania show was to begin, I ran across Charles Mitchell in the lobby. Charles is married to Dare McNeil's daughter, Marie, making her one of George Edmiston's nieces. When I told him about having dinner with the Edmiston's, he smiled broadly and spoke simply, saying, "They don't get any better than Uncle George."

I was having such fun that I hardly noticed how much time had gone by. When I glanced around the lobby it was practically empty, so Laura and I hurried to our seats to see the evening show, Hypnomania, starring Dr. Travis Fox.

I must confess to being a bit skeptical about the whole hypnosis thing, but Laura was all into it. I was put somewhat at ease by the opening remarks by the hypnotist, Travis Fox. He quickly dispelled what I would imagine were the misgivings of many who were there by promising not to ask people to do anything they wouldn't do ordinarily. Even with that, I still could not believe people would go on stage in a public place to be hypnotized, but about thirty of them did — including Laura.

They all sat in a semi-circle of chairs on the stage. Dr. Fox talked to each of them, and a few were excused.

When Travis Fox began to hypnotize his subjects, he spoke loudly, then softly; to them as a group, then to them individually as he passed by their chair. To my absolute bewilderment, in a matter of a few minutes, he appeared to have the whole bunch asleep, with their heads on each other's shoulders like so many first graders at naptime.

What followed was even more amazing.

Dr. Fox would tell his subjects things to do and, at the snap of his fingers, they would respond. He told one guy named Jimmy that he was Elvis and, when the music started and Dr. Fox's fingers snapped, Jimmy became The King himself, dancing with a mic stand and swiveling his hips to the tune of "Jailhouse Rock." A young girl was told she was Brittany Spears, and she immediately danced and sang her heart out until given a command by Fox, whereupon she stopped cold and handed over the microphone as meekly as a kitten.

Several in the group were told they were at a disco in the 70s. Instantly, to the tune of "Stayin' Alive," the whole group began to dance, pretty much in unison. One of the things that fascinated me about this particular part of the show was that it included Steven Woodard, a fourteen year old Wilkes Central student.

When I talked with him by phone on Monday night, he told me that he knew practically nothing about disco, but he danced right along with the rest of them. Steven was also given an individual command by Dr. Fox. He was instructed, at a certain cue, to take a big fly swatter and kill a huge "cockroach" which would be walking across the stage. Every few minutes, we would see Steven jump up and vigorously pound the stage with the swatter, then appear to be scraping up the remains of the insect and tossing it into the audience. I asked Steven if he could remember what went on. He told me he could vaguely remember the commands, but had no idea what he had done. He also said the sleep was real and restful, and that he had a very difficult time going to sleep that evening after he went home. I also asked Steven if he had ever been hypnotized before Saturday's Hypnomania show, and he told me he had been once during a theater arts class, but he was only put to sleep — no activities or instructions were attempted.

All in all, it was a pleasant, educational and really fun evening. I became much less of a skeptic about hypnosis and look forward to seeing another show like Hypnomania sometime. Perhaps I'll even attempt to be hypnotized myself next time.

Oh, by the way, if you are wondering how Laura fared, she woke up about halfway through the show and returned to her seat. She said it was interesting, but she never felt she was in the deep sleep required to be a really good subject.

Yeah, right.

Okay folks, I am counting on you. You have got to promise me that not one of you who were at the Walker Center Saturday night are ever going to tell Laura what she really did.

I'll appreciate it.

So will her family.

By John Setzer

Record Columnist

Humor goes hand in glove with certain life styles.

Bishops, for example, are known to be fond of laughter. Some of them unintentionally provide fine fodder for the rest of us. In some circles it is contended that a good candidate for bishop is anyone who knows at least two jokes about every subject under the sun.

Alas, bishops, like other mortals, sometimes take themselves far too seriously. It was G. K. Chesterton, the British newspaper writer and raconteur who gently poked fun at some stuffed shirt clergymen in writing, “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly. Satan fell by reason of gravity.”

One super-serious man of the cloth I knew in another state prided himself on having informed opinions about most everything and — to his mind — each one was absolutely correct.

His ex-wife bailed out of that restrictive marriage and summarized his whole approach to life by telling me, “He was often wrong but never in doubt.”

Awhile back I taught a course in Texas on how to expand one’s sense of humor. (Texans are a push over for always wanting to make things bigger.) It was entitled “Laugh More, Live Longer.” An initial suggestion was to start with yourself if you’re looking for something to laugh at; each of us can provide ourselves with lots of raw material.

A recent example of this in my family revolves around the double hearing aids I wear. Not infrequently I mishear what is said, sometimes with hilarious results.

Just the other day the phone at home rang. I picked it up only to hear an extremely soft male voice whisper something I absolutely could not understand. (I think it was on of those “dis-courtesy calls.”)

It sounded vaguely like some guy with a very thick Babylonian accent. Two or three times I told him I couldn’t hear him and asked him to speak more loudly. Finally, frustrated, I said, “I’m sorry, sir, I have no idea what you are talking about” and hung up. “Who was that?” my wife asked. “I have no idea,” I said and told her about the foreign-sounding accent. “Oh, no,” she exclaimed, “that might have been Chuck.”

I was chagrined to think that I might have slammed down the receiver on our son. Happily, this story has a humorous ending. A couple of days later the son, Chuck, called from the West Coast and assured his Mom that it was not him whom I’d hung up on. So now I’m the object of family humor. “Watch out with Dad! Speak softly like a Babylonian and he’ll hang up on you.”

The ability to laugh at one’s self is a cultivated gift. Apparently none of us is born with that it; we must learn to observe ourselves in order to see our humorous idiocenrities. Taking note of one’s self is akin to the Socratic dictum to “Know yourself.”

Socrates is alleged to have written, “The unexamined life is not with living.” A modern-day wag (probably a therapist or a clergyman!) responded with, “The unlived life is not worth examining.” So… may we subject our lives to lightweight scrutiny, slipping the slide of each day’s happenings under the microscope of humor.

With practice we are sure to discover there is much to laugh about and enjoy in our little corner of the world.