OUT OF THE BLUE
Remember to pack humor
By Elliott Hester

Recently, while serving passengers aboard an A-300 Airbus, I was startled by a strange discordant sound. The sound alerted my post-9/11 flight attendant sensibilities and sent me scurrying from the first class cabin to investigate.

I pushed past the curtains, entered the main cabin and stopped dead in my tracks. The sound repeated itself. Again and again and again. It was loud. Thunderous. A sound that turned my skin into gooseflesh and left my jaw unhinged. I had responded to the infectious sound of laughter.

From a standing position at the front of the cabin, I gazed upon a sea of chuckling faces. Strangers, squeezed together in coach class proximity, were watching the in-flight presentation of the movie "Legally Blonde." And they were laughing like high-altitude hyenas.

Perhaps 100 people stared up at the television monitors, oblivious to the gloom that has permeated airplane cabins for the past four months, unmindful of fortified cockpit doors and F-16 escorts and the threat of terrorism that necessitates these things. This was flying the way it ought to be. Raucous laughter woke sleeping passengers, who immediately reached for their headsets.

One woman laughed so uncontrollably that tears ran from her eyes. She doubled over (an act that on any other flight might have required the use of supplemental oxygen) and nearly fell from her chair.

I stood in the front of the cabin feeling good. Really good. In recent months, passengers and crew have been afraid to laugh on airplanes. Many who - weren't afraid found it difficult to do so. Laughter seemed inappropriate considering the in-flight horrors that occurred on Sept. 11. But maybe it's OK to laugh now. In fact, we need to laugh now. Laughter - coupled with the passage of time - helps heal the wounds of tragedy. I learned this lesson well after a family tragedy on New Year's Day.

That morning I woke with a mild hangover, expecting to hear bad news. Perhaps terrorists had commandeered another aircraft. Maybe someone boarded an airplane with an explosive suppository. I crawled out of bed, turned on the television and prayed that CNN would allay my fears. Thankfully, it did. There were no airline-related catastrophes reported that day.

Then the telephone rang. A relative called to tell me that my father had died. She found his lifeless body reclining on his living room sofa. He had been watching television when his arteries apparently closed down for good.

A few days later, I flew to Chicago for my father's memorial service. Ironically, the service was scheduled on the very day that should have been the happiest of my life. My first book had just been published and I appeared on two local TV news shows that morning. At noon I kicked off a six-city book tour with a reading at Border's Books in downtown Chicago. A few hours after the reading, I stood in front of yet another microphone and read my father's eulogy.

Allow me to take one step backward.

When my sister arrived at Borders to hear me read, she was carrying a satchel. Inside the satchel was a box. And inside the box lay the cremated remains of my father. He had been ecstatic about the publication of my book and I was heartbroken because he would never hear me read from it. But now, due to a comedy of errors involving Federal Express, a busy funeral director and family logistics, my father managed to attend the reading anyway.

When I finished, a Border's manager approached and offered condolences. Not for the reading, mind you. He was referring to my father's death. "I'm sorry to hear about your loss," he said.

"Thanks so much," I replied. "But my father was with us at the reading today."

"I'm sure he was," said the manager.

"No, no - he really was," I said.

"I'm sure he was here in spirit," replied the manager, laying a gentle hand upon my shoulder.

"No, really," I insisted, pointing to my sister's satchel. "He actually attended the reading. His cremated ashes are in there."

The Border's manager covered his mouth with both hands and gasped. His eyes grew as large as satellite dishes. He bore the comical expression of a cartoon character who'd eaten something he -wasn't supposed to.

I -couldn't help but laugh. After realizing it was OK for him to do so, the manager laughed along with me. My sister, who had been crying in the Self Help section of the book store 30 minutes earlier, laughed too. It was the first time we had laughed since arriving in Chicago. That laughter helped get me through one of the most difficult days of my life.

It's impossible to feel bad when you're laughing. At the precise moment of convulsion, sorrow shuts down like a generator with a blown fuse. This is what happened that afternoon at Border's. The same thing happened during my return flight to Miami.

Eyes filled with tears, I sat in a window seat staring at passing clouds and thinking about my father. But when the startled face of the Border's manager popped into my mind, I laughed for the remainder of the flight. I laughed, and I felt better.

As airline passengers endure long lines at check-in counters and security checkpoints, as we are subjected to bag searches and shoe removal, as we trundle through crowded airport terminals on our way to crowded airplanes, let's not forget to bring our sense of humor.

Sometimes it's the only thing that gets us through the day.