About the Author: Richard G. Lazar,
Dr. Richard G. Lazar, aka Spike or Doc, is a distinguished Organizational Psychologist who has doubled and dabbled as a Behavioral Economist and as a humorologist. He holds three degrees, including a PhD from New York University, and has worldwide experience as both peacemaker and profit-maker for many companies and individuals. Throughout his 30-year career he always included humor in his corporate work. Now his recent studies have focused particularly on laughter and the benefits of laughter on the aging.
"He who laughs, lasts." —Mark Twain
"Laughter is the shortest distance between people." —Victor Borge
The Fountain of Humor™ is about the need for a surge of laughter every day in almost every way. Doc focuses strictly on laughter and not "funny," not "comedy," not "humor," and not anything else but laughter. He did a good deal of intensive thinking and research for three years and concluded that laughter is a fountain of well-being for all of us and those conclusions are especially encouraging as they affect seniors.
As the author notes, "We seniors seem to lose our willingness or ability to laugh as time goes by . . . unless we employ some real effort. It is said that children laugh about 400 times a day and that adults laugh about 15 times a day. Whatever the real numbers were and are in your past and present lifetime it is true, isn't it that the rate of laughter is less as we move past 55 than when we were just starting out in life? There are clearly different reasons for each of us for losing or suppressing our laughter. Ever hear, ‘Don't laugh too loud,' ‘Don't embarrass me in public with that cackle,' ‘This is a serious matter, nothing to laugh about,' or ‘You just have to control yourself or leave this room.' We all have been imprinted with other expressions or rules of conduct that dampen our willingness to laugh a lot and out loud.
Evidence leads me to believe that ‘funny' stuff, whether real, forced or faked, and if it results in out loud laughter is good for our mental and physical health."
The Fountain of Humor for Seniors available as an eBook and in Audio files is a collection of jokes and stories targeted to seniors 50+. These jokes can be read and listened to by the senior him- or herself or read and/or played to them by the people who live, work or love them. The material is helpful to mind and body. It is funny, tasteful and likely to make most seniors laugh out loud.
It's all about feeling good, feeling much better, reducing sad feelings, healing mind and body. All anyone needs to do is to laugh loud and long to feel good and better. Yes, it works. It's not a cure-all for aging and not a Fountain of Youth . . . simply a Fountain of Humor™ for seniors. It is a supply of funny jokes and stories that really helps, for a while, to reduce the depression about aging, the loss of loved ones, chronic illness, loss of sight, sound and mobility.
Our jokes and stories are provided through our unique process of selection, customization and cleansing by our "Joke-Jury." This combined publication of text and audio has been designed so that:
A blind or partially blind person can hear the jokes and laugh.
A deaf or partially deaf person can see the jokes and laugh.
A healthy person can see and hear the jokes and laugh.
Even the dying find something to laugh about for a moment in time and will ask for more jokes.
My father-in-law, terminally ill with cancer, called often in his last year asking my wife and me to read a joke or two to him. Hearing him laugh from miles away also opened the door to comforting conversation and made it easier for all of us. This is mighty important for all of us.
An 85-year-old, losing her mental capacities, repeatedly asked for our jokes to be read to her. It comforted her right up to her passing.
A professional woman purchased the set for "signing" to groups of deaf people. She works with them as the audio version plays the jokes for her.
Instructions are provided on how to read them to diverse senior audiences in institutional settings or families or to their friends.
We believe that the elderly, infirmed, families or just two people enjoy the togetherness and communal feeling that laughter brings. People love having jokes read to them. That "legitimizes" laughing out loud. Everyone wants to laugh, whether they are kids age 1 or 100.
