Is Laughter Yoga Exercise or Entertainment?

It is something laughter yoga/laughter wellness leaders might want to ask themselves. 

Read my article.

Fireflies - For the first day of summer

"Fireflies" ©2014 Noreen Braman

As dusk darkens my yard, hundreds of tiny lights rise from the grass, like silent fireworks. The yard is alive with light. As I watch these little stars twinkle, it is hard to remember that this is the magic of an insect, not some ethereal spirit.

I am awed by the evolutionary miracle that has taken place so that fireflies can find a mate in the summer darkness. Suddenly, I am aware of the mystical importance of it all — primeval life going on amid the suburban rubble.

As humans, we can feel that only our own existence is important, that somehow we have the power over life. And yet, nature is there, gently reminding us that life goes on, with or without us. As long as I can see fireflies doing their dance on a hot, summer evening, I'll know there is hope for the world.

©2014 Noreen Braman
 updated from my previously published version that appeared in Sunshine Magazine.

The President Kennedy and Chicken Fat Song Connection

Anyone who was in school during the 60s remembers the President's Physical Fitness program, instituted by President Kennedy, and the tests you took to prove how American Strong you were. For me, it was the chin up that was my demise, my flabby arms unable to lift me up more than once, and I am not even sure I did it once.

The program had a television commercial that I have been desperately searching for. It featured a depiction of a human as a head on a TV screen that barked orders to a robot. Where it should be taken, etc. At one point, the robot just wanders off, leaving the TV head person to just keep shouting at the robot whose name I seem to remember was "Z-12." The moral of the story? Use your body, or someday you won't have one anymore. It was an idea that resurfaces in the the Pixar animated film, "Wall E" where bloated, obese humans have every need met by robots and machinery. Cautionary tales meant to inspire us to take care of our bodies and the planet.

I remembered the President's Physical Fitness challenge with a wistful nostalgia, a noble idea that never quite got me to improve my chin-up performance, but did serve as a source of reward for those more athletically inclined, including my own children when they were in grammar school. What I never remembered, until now, was that this program also came with an evil, menacing, demeaning piece of music that has been recently resurrected by a commercial for Apple. 

It appears that the "Chicken Fat" song, which became the soundtrack of my adolescent nightmares, was actually titled "The Youth Fitness Song" and it was commissioned by the President's Council on Physical Fitness. Written by Meredith Wilson ("The Music Man") and recorded by "Music Man" star, Robert Preston. My brain, which has been screaming since I first heard this song playing in the commercial, is now on full about-to-meltdown red alert. Say it isn't so!

Oh yes, we've got trouble, right here in EVERY CITY IN AMERICA. Sure, Apple shortens the torture, it almost sounds catchy. But listen to it, preserved for posterity on the JFK Library website. 

And if you want to sing along, here, via Lyrics Playground, are the words. Every torturous verse.

Thank You, Apple, for reawakening the chicken fat trauma!

My ears are bleeding and a terrible song is ringing in my ears. No, I don't know the name of it, or who sings it. All I hear is the demeaning refrain that demands, "go you chicken fat—go!"

All I can see is  a junior high school gymnasium, in East Brunswick, New Jersey, full of adolescent girls in ridiculous white "gym suits" that snap up the front and show the world every bit of patterned underwear that you wore by mistake because you forgot it was gym day.

All I can feel are the eyes of the gym teachers as they bark out corrections for the exercises we are stumbling through to the beat of that godawful chicken fat song! A song I had convinced myself was only the stuff of a junior high nightmare and not something that really ever existed.

But now, thanks to Apple digging up this monstrosity from the adolescent graveyard where it should have stayed, I run, cowering, from the room each time the commercial comes on. And, as for whatever great new apps and gadgets are being advertised, don't show them to me, don't tell me how wonderful they are; because in my mind they swim forever in a greasy nightmare of chicken fat.