Three Points of Light

February 19, 2022

Two nights ago I attended what I thought might be a serious lecture on politics and social issues. I spent the evening laughing at those issues instead.

Fran Lebowitz is an eccentric New York City writer and public speaker who came to nearby Santa Rosa as part of her national speaking tour. All I knew about her was what I had learned from googling her before deciding to get my ticket: she’s a lesbian who wears men’s suit coats; she’s a heavy smoker and an advocate for smoker’s rights; she was a New York City cab driver in the 1970’s; she’s a liberal Democrat but not a feminist; and she has a sardonic sense of humor.

I was delighted to discover that in spite of her serious opinions on a variety of subjects, the 71 year old is one of the funniest women I’ve ever seen. Yet she’s not a stand-up comic with prepared jokes – she was quick witted in an unscripted onstage conversation with a local interviewer and in her Q & A session with the audience of about 1,000 people at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.

Even if I could remember her wisecracks I couldn’t do them justice here, because my words cannot convey the perfect timing of her spontaneous quips. But I can say that her candor about her personal life, as well as her basic human decency, shone through the topics raised by her female interviewer and the audience.

Fran was not the flaming liberal that I expected. While she predictably deplored Donald Trump, she doesn’t like Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris either, and she suggested that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi should step aside for a younger generation of Democratic leaders. Yet she also said that while she likes Georgia politician Stacey Abrams, she feels that Abrams and former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg are too inexperienced to be president. She joked that more people live in her Manhattan apartment building than live in South Bend. She admires the intelligence of singer Dolly Parton, a personal friend of hers, and commented half seriously that Parton would make a great president.

What mattered more to me than Fran’s opinions is her ability to see the absurdity in human nature and in political and social behavior. I didn’t agree with everything she said, but she made me laugh long and hard at her perceptive observations. And she doesn’t take herself too seriously – a good reminder for all of us to lighten up in these polarized times.

Another humorist who didn’t take himself too seriously was the self deprecating writer P.J. O’Rourke, who died this week at 74 of lung cancer, probably as a result of his smoking (Yes, I’m talkin’ to you, Fran). His death caught my attention because many years ago I read his 1988 book Holidays in Hell, in which he traveled the world visiting combat zones and other hellholes on a fun-finding mission. He looked for the humor or at least the irony in dangerous or unpleasant places such as Lebanon, El Salvador, Belfast, the Philippines, and the Gaza strip.

One of the strange places O’Rourke visited was Heritage USA, a born again Christian theme park in South Carolina. He commented that “Dorothy and I came to scoff – but went away converted. Unfortunately, we were converted to Satanism.”

A conservative Republican, O’Rourke voted for Hillary Clinton because he couldn’t stand Donald Trump, and he had no problem making fun of his own party: “The Democrats are the party that says that government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”

If Fran and P.J. have used laughter to cope with our crazy world, Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen responded to human foolishness with kindness. Halvorsen, a World War II era Air Force pilot, died this week at 101. He may have lived a long life in part because, as a Mormon, he was almost certainly a non smoker (Yes, Fran, I’m still talkin’ to you).

Halvorsen gained fame as the first “Candy Bomber” when, in 1948, he came up with the idea of using Air Force planes to drop tiny parachutes attached to little bags filled with candy for the children of West Berlin. Russian dictator Joseph Stalin had cut off land deliveries of food and medicine to communist-surrounded West Berlin, so President Harry Truman ordered the U.S. Air Force to carry out the Berlin Airlift to deliver those critical supplies to West Berliners.

At one point Lt. Halvorsen noticed some shabbily dressed German children standing outside a fence at his West Berlin Air Force base, and he gave them his last two sticks of chewing gum. When he saw how much they appreciated his little gesture, he promised them that he would use his transport plane to drop candies, chocolates, and chewing gum for them, in addition to the large bundles of food that he delivered for their families.

As Halvorsen later explained, “The airlift reminded me that the only way to fulfillment in life, real fulfillment, is to serve others,” Mr. Halvorsen told CNN on the Berlin airlift’s 40th anniversary. “I was taught that as a youth in my church, and I found when I flew day and night to serve a former enemy that my feelings of fulfillment and being worthwhile were the strongest that I’ve felt.” (from the New York Times, 2/17/22).

Check out the New York Times obituary of this American hero for more details on the beautiful story of the Candy Bomber at

I guess the moral of this essay is: If you can’t be funny, be kind.

Many thanks to Fran, P.J., and Lt. Halvorsen for brightening my day.