Dave Barry’s column used to arrive every Sunday in the Boston Globe, guaranteed to make me laugh with pleasure and amazement that someone could consistently be so nutty.  Barry’s nationally syndicated column ended in 2005 but he has continued to write books with the philosophy that “a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.

This book had me laughing out loud on nearly every page.  Drawing upon his 10 year old rescue dog, Lucy, some mix of boxer, golden retriever, dalmatian, and chow chow (yes, he had her DNA analyzed), Barry comes up with seven lessons which he embraces in order to live a better, truer, and more fulfilling life.  Since he and I are nearly the same age, I paid particular attention to these lessons as follows:

1) Make new friends and keep the ones you have.

2)Don’t stop having fun and if you have stopped, start having fun again.

3) Pay attention to the people you love, not later, right now.

4) Let go of your anger, unless it’s about something really important, which it almost never is.

5) Try not to judge people by their looks, and don’t obsess over your own.

6)Don’t let your happiness depend on things; they don’t make you truly happy, and you’ll never have enough anyway.

7) Don’t lie unless you have a really good reason, which you probably don’t.

These are really, really good ideas, difficult to implement but important as one enters this final chapter in life. Yes, they’re somewhat self-evident, but it helps to see them spelled out, and it really helps to have someone as hysterically funny and iconoclastic as Barry present them.  I could copy most of the book into this review to demonstrate how funny he is, but these two examples will have to suffice.  In his chapter about having fun, he writes hysterically about his experiences with two groups, the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of writers who formed a rock band, and the World Famous Lawn Rangers, a group of men from Arcola, Illinois who do ‘precision’ marching with brooms and lawn mowers (it’s true and they marched at Obama’s inauguration!).  But, the funniest lines in the book for me are his discussion about aging and the AARP that runs as follows: “Getting old sucks. Oh sure, some people claim it doesn’t suck. And by some people, I mean AARP.  AARP, as you probably know, is the last sound you make before you die.  

911 operator:  This is 911. Do you have an emergency?  Caller: Yes! It’s my husband! He collapsed to the floor and his face turned blue and he’s making a weird noise!  911 operator:  What kind of noise?  Caller: It sounds like aarp.  911 operator:  Ok. I’ll send a hearse.”  

I loved this book and the laughter it gave me did distract me from the political disasters unfolding daily.  Unexpectedly, I also found his seven lessons to be relevant and worth pursuing—friends, fun, attending to loved ones, less anger, less judging by appearance, less dependence on things, and being honest—one could do a lot worse.

Warning: The final chapter of the book describes a sudden turn in Barry’s life which while it ends well, threw this reader for a major loop.  Be warned.