Rona Barrett: These days we need all the laughter we can get

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No one’s ever said I was funny. Amusing, sure, but not really funny — at least not intentionally. You’re chuckling, right?

But I am a great audience and I do love to laugh, whether it’s a giggle, chuckle, guffaw, belly laugh, snort, or a convulsion.

And we all know that laughter is good for the heart, mind, and soul. Laughter can connect us and uplift us. So, what do you say we take time to laugh together? Because if ever we needed to be uplifted — it’s now.

If you’re a senior, I think you’ll enjoy these jokes and one-liners the most. But then again, if you’re not a senior, but you know a senior, you may just find yourself giggling, chuckling, or even guffawing anyway.

And we all know that hearing a joke is infinitely funnier than reading a joke, so read them out loud. It’s your excuse for talking to yourself!

Former KABC weatherman Fritz Coleman at the Conference on Aging says, “…You know you’re getting old when parts of your body begin to go through their own midlife crisis. Your face doesn’t want to be a face anymore … it wants to live out a childhood fantasy and become a chin …”

Here’s one from Jerry Seinfeld: You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, “See if you can blow this out.”

Jane Fonda certainly has the gift of delivering a joke when she wants to: I’m over the hill, but nobody prepared me for what was going to be on the other side.

Here’s what Cher has to say about time: In this business it takes time to be really good — and by that time, you're obsolete. I've been up and down so many times that I feel as if I'm in a revolving door.

Here’s some I found on the ubiquitous Internet:

I’m aging like a fine banana.

“Your finest Scotch, please.” “'Yes, sir,' the guy at Staples says as he hands me a 12-year-old roll of tape.”

I’ve reached the age where looking in the mirror is like checking the news. I know there’ll be some new developments I won’t like.

Men don’t care what’s on TV. They only care what else is on TV.

They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it very much.

How do you know you’re old? People call at 9 p.m. and ask, “Did I wake you?”

Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God’s final word on where your lips end.

I tried to explain to my four-year-old grandson that it’s perfectly normal to accidentally poop your pants, but he’s still making fun of me.

Aug. 16 was National Tell a Joke Day, which “seeks to encourage telling a joke to boost happiness and laughter. When you hear a good joke, it activates neurons in the brain called the reward pathway.”

But let’s not wait for next Aug. 16 to activate our reward pathway. Let’s giggle, chuckle, guffaw, belly laugh, snort, and convulse to stay uplifted and resilient, because as some wise jokester said:

“The older we get, the more we need to keep a fire extinguisher closer to the cake!”

Until next time … keep thinking the good thoughts.