4 | DECEMBER 16 • 2021 

for openers

Laughing Through Tears
T

his column was 
supposed to appear last 
week. But I only got 
one sentence into my usual 
monthly “attempt” at humor 
and abruptly 
stopped. Actually, 
I had begun 
with a question: 
“Have you heard 
about former 
Detroit Tiger 
Max Scherzer’s 
newest contract?” 
That question 
still existed a week later, by 
itself, with a blank page below 
it. I saved the document file 
on Nov. 30 titled: “Muskovitz 
Column for Dec. 9.” 
Scherzer had just signed 
a three-year contract worth 
an astounding $130 million. 
I was prepared to have some 
fun with that mind-boggling 
baseball bounty. 
I began writing the column 
having just heard about the 
horror that was that day’s 
Oxford High School shooting. 
I stared at my computer 
screen, 11 words in, unable to 
continue. 
I reached out to the JN and 
asked for a one-week delay in 
writing my column. I couldn’t 
think funny. I couldn’t write 
funny. My brain was as blank 
as the computer screen before 
me. 
I’ve been through this 
before. As I’ve previously 
shared with you, after 9-11, 
when, as a member of the 
Dick Purtan radio show, we 
veered from our usual comedic 
bantering to finding ourselves 
as a shoulder to lean on for our 
listeners as we all meandered 
our way through the emotional 

maze that was the aftermath of 
the terrorist attack. 
It took a while before we 
added some measure of humor 
back into our programming. 
There’s no set timetable; you 
just get a feeling when the time 
is right.
When the pandemic 
hit in full force, I again 
struggled with trying to create 
lighthearted fare about our 
everyday existence amongst 
the climbing COVID-19 death 
rates and the lockdown of our 
lives. It was again the challenge 
of writing funny in what sadly 
seems to be an increasingly 
unfunny world. 
Eventually, pandemic 
parodies were aplenty and I 
joined in the fray. I particularly 
recall funny memes and 
videos about how to clean our 
groceries began popping up.
Abraham Lincoln said: 
“I laugh because I must not 
cry.” Somehow humor always 
finds its own level. But after 
this unthinkable, devastating 
school shooting that happened 
in our own backyard? That’s a 
mighty tall order. 
The current unsettling 
condition of our country and 
the world at large recently left 
me in a temporary melancholy 
state. I had become the victim 
of the numbing down of 
America. My son noticed this 
temporary shift in my mood 
and suggested I take some of 
my own advice and seek out 
some comic relief.
I retreated to another 
room and settled in and 
watched some of my favorite 
comedians, courtesy of 
YouTube. Within a half-
hour, I resurfaced the better 

for having undertaken that 
exercise. 
Mark Twain was quoted to 
have said “comedy is tragedy 
plus time.” Easier said by 
those who write comedy than 
actually experience tragedy. 
For the students of blessed 
memory from Oxford High 
School, the injured, all the 
families affected, there is no 
amount of time that will ever 
adequately lift the burden of 
living with those children’s 
fate. 
Laughter, though, can and 
must still be, as the old adage 
goes, the best medicine. 
With permission from Pfizer 
and Moderna, a dose of 
humor is in fact a form of 
vaccine. A little injection in 
our funny bone goes a long 
way in protecting us from 
wallowing for too long in a 
state of hopelessness. Humor 
can keep us grounded so that 
we can remain strong for the 
challenges that life presents. 
That being said, allow me 
to leave you with a little levity 

and dip my toe ever so slightly 
back into the humor pool, 
briefly picking up on where I 
left off on my original article 
from Nov. 30. Take 2 ... if you 
will.
Have you heard about 
former Detroit Tiger 
Max Scherzer’s newest 
contract? At 37-years old 
Max — the former Arizona 
Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, 
Washington Nationals and Los 
Angeles Dodgers pitching ace 
— has agreed to a three-year, 
$130 million contract with the 
New York Mets. 
The $43.3 million per year 
deal sets a Major League 
Baseball record for highest 
annual salary. Remember 
when Al Kaline turned down 
a $100,000 contract from the 
Tigers in 1971 because he 
felt he didn’t deserve it? He 
declined a $10,000 raise and 
remained at $90,000.
Scherzer’s total signings 
over the course of his 15-year 
baseball career now stand 
at $370 million. You can’t 
look me in the eye and say 
that isn’t crazy! However, 
if you look Max Scherzer 
in the eye, things get even 
crazier. It’s well known that 
Max has a condition called 
Heterochromia Iridis; his left 
eye is brown and his right 
eye is blue, which apparently 
means he can only see green.
I know what you’re thinking 
... if laughter is the best 
medicine, I need to get another 
prescription. 

Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/

acting talent, speaker, and emcee. Visit 

his website at laughwithbigal.com,”Like” 

Al on Facebook and reach him at 

amuskovitz@thejewishnews.com.

Alan 
Muskovitz
Contributing 
Writer

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