The juvenile pileated woodpeckers were filmed at Kensington Metro Park in Michigan. My brother felt very lucky to spend a couple hours filming them, since they are often shy and quick to fly from tree to tree. My grandmother loves pileated woodpeckers, and she didn’t see one in Michigan until several years ago, so we consider ourselves fortunate filmmakers!

In 1972, a gentleman and widower named Vern spotted a lovely lady sitting in the back row of his church in Trenton, Michigan.  He asked the minister about her and learned that she was “Mrs. Sams,” that her husband Oscar had died, and that she had two boys in college.  The minister spoke highly of her, so Vern decided he would look up her phone number in the church directory and ask her on a date.  (I recently discovered from some elders in this church that the back row was traditionally the place for single ladies – so beware of your seating choices in church. . .).

Also in 1972, my parents got married and were living with my dad’s mom — the “Mrs. Sams” who sat in the back row of the church.  My mom was a newlywed, and she was getting used to her new last name of Sams.

Vern called the number from the church directory, and my mom answered the phone.

“May I speak to Mrs. Sams?” Vern asked politely.

“This is she,” my mom replied.

Then Vern proceeded to ask my mom out on a date.  My mom listened and finally said, “I think you want the other Mrs. Sams.”  And that is how my grandparents met.

My Grandma Max and Grandpa Vern were married for 36 years, and I have been thinking a lot about them lately, specifically about how they kept amazing senses of humor in the face of very serious circumstances.

The funniest I ever remember my Grandpa Vern being . . . was in the waiting room of an emergency room.  One evening many years ago on Thanksgiving, my Grandma Max was having trouble breathing, which quickly progressed to not being able to breathe at all.  The paramedics came and whisked her away to the hospital down river, and I took my Grandpa Vern to the hospital, where we sat in the waiting room, with all the other worried and weary folks who sit in emergency rooms in the middle of the night.  I, myself, was sitting quietly, hoping and also dreading the moment that someone came to tell us whether she lived or died.  (She did live on this night, by the way).

Suddenly my Grandpa Vern started telling jokes . . . jokes about farmers and boys falling down wells.  Jokes about stray dogs.  Jokes about kids at church.  And the entire waiting room was laughing,  hilariously.  My Grandpa Vern just kept telling jokes, and he allowed us (about 15 people in all) in the waiting room to laugh and bond and forget for a little while, just for a little while, the situation we were in.  It was the funniest I ever saw him.  In the face of a terrible situation, he got funnier.  It was an amazing moment to witness.

A few years after that, my Grandma Max found out she had breast cancer (she lived through that too, by the way).  She had a mastectomy, and while she was healing, she wrote a song called “Lopsided Lady, You’re Not All There For Me.”  It was hilarious and, of course, a brilliant way to deal with a frustrating situation.

There are some very serious issues facing our world right now, from the economy to the state of the environment.  As my grandparents used grace and humor as a coping mechanism, I have made a conscious choice to use humor in our own movies and books.  I write stories for children that give them a chance to laugh.  I also make a conscious choice to write humor that adults can enjoy with children, because if families are laughing together, the laughter is even more powerful.  It gives families a needed reprieve from the serious and often stifling realities of the immense issues we all face in our day to day lives.

I am lucky to come from a family that appreciates humor, and much of that comes from my grandparents.  I am certainly happy that Vern persevered to take “the other Mrs. Sams” out on a date all those years ago.