Twenty-six of the greatest lessons I was ever taught.

This is a chapter from The ABCs of Dan M. Wilson.

Grandpa Dan was a funny man. There are very few facts that can be used to dispute this statement. Coupled with his never-ending supply of charm, his wit made people light up and laugh day in and day out. I honestly believe that one of the reasons why his marriage to Grandma Pat lasted more than fifty years was due to his sense of humor. Can you think of a time when Grandma didn’t have a smile on her face while Grandpa was around?

Many comedians are joke tellers. Others tell elaborate stories to garner a guffaw. Comics nowadays seem to always resort to bawdiness. Not Grandpa. His master’s degree in mirth came about in the form of quickly delivered one-liners and his eternal go-to – the bad pun.

Now this isn’t to say that he didn’t tell jokes, spin elaborate tales, or drop the occasional dirty line. Believe me, he did. I just found him to be funniest whenever he was delivering quips and bad puns at the same rate as a machine gun fires. The man was quick. He could ad-lib with the best of them.

Dad introduced me to what has become my bread and butter in the realm of comedy – the play on words. His ability to take a seemingly bland line and, by adding a comment of his own, turning the original sentence into something hysterical was something I found to be the benchmark of a true comedian. Steve Carrell’s character on The Office gets the bulk of his laughs from utilizing this method of comedy.

My favorite saying of Grandpa Dan’s was very simple. At the time I first heard him utter it, he wasn’t going for a comedic effect…but it had one. Mom, Dad, and I were playing spades and Dad was down big during this particular hand. He managed to make a tremendous comeback, much to the disbelief of your grandmother and myself. When Grandma asked him how he managed to do that, he replied:

“Where there’s a Wilson, there’s a way.”

Where there’s a Wilson, there’s a way.

Now I had heard the phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way” for years and years. But Dad’s quick rewording made it a new classic. I began to realize just how clever he was as a comedian…and how quickly his mind worked. Here was a man in his 50s at the time, with a razor sharp wit. I could only hope to be half as sharp at that age.

As the years went on I watched Dad “do battle” with other quick wits to see who could one-up the other with the best zinger. His head-to-head “competitions” with his brother, my Uncle Paul, were the stuff of which legends are made. Wow. These two were steeped in the quips to the level of a Groucho Marx or a Robin Williams. It was truly amazing to watch. I think the first time I ever cried from laughing was during one of these sessions.

Eventually I was allowed in to perform on the same stage as Dad when he was dropping the puns and comical cut-downs. It took me a while before I could hold my own but once I did I felt like I had been allowed into an elite club.

I tried my best to pass onto you the same tools that Grandpa Dan had passed onto me. Remember all those rhyming games we used to play when you were a tiny lil’ squirt? Or our groan-inducing “pancakes, mancakes, Jackie Chan-cakes” pun exercises? Yes, every single one of those was done in an effort to get you to be able to compete on the same stage with Grandpa Dan.

You’ve done well as your wit is phenomenal. Now spend the rest of your life using what you have learned to spread that most infectious of diseases – laughter.