by Michael Vuolo
NARRATION: It's raining in the suburbs outside of Trenton, New Jersey. The skies are dark and the streets are flooded ... but the mood inside this minivan is buoyant.
TAPE: BETHKE: My name is Marie Bethke. I'm an RN and a CLL ... which is a certified laughter leader. Is that cool or what?
NARRATION: Bethke is founder of the Heart to Hearts Laughter Club. She and a few other women from the group are on their way to a nursing home ... to spread cheer through laughter ... a practice Bethke adopted in her own life in the wake of tragedy.
TAPE: BETHKE: My son Bill was in the first tower that was hit in the 9/11 fiasco ... and my last conversation with my son Bill was the Sunday before and all we did was end up laughing ... that's my last sounds of my son is laughter.
NARRATION: The following February, Bethke attended a weekend workshop sponsored by the World Laughter Tour, Incorporated. Yeah, it's a movement ... it started in the U.S. in the late 1990s by Steve Wilson ... and it's grown to more than a hundred laughter clubs across the country. The idea is to improve your state of mind, to deal with grief, to be a happier person through a sort of daily ... ritualistic ... forced laughter. Bethke came away from that weekend with a certificate and ... more importantly ... with what was for her a better way to cope with the loss of her son.
TAPE: BETHKE: I guess I was just searching ... you know you're like in a little fog there for a while ... nothing's kind of real and ... this just brought some reality back . I get more out of going out to the nursing homes ... to the care places, to businesses ... wherever I go, I get more out of it than I give I'm sure.
NARRATION: Today, Bethke has her nephew and niece along for the ride. Some introductions ...
TAPE: GEORGIE: I'm Georgie Bennet [laugh]
NARRATION: Around this family ... everyone has a signature laugh.
TAPE: TONI: My name is Toni Jane Bennet [laugh]
NARRATION: Georgie and Toni are happy to finally arrive at the nursing home [post car door sound]. Inside, Bethke wears a T-shirt with a large smiling picture of the earth on front. About 25 residents from the home are gathered in a circle on comfy chairs and couches next to a fireplace. Bethke starts off with an ice breaker. She has the residents greet each other with "hellos" and ... well, listen for yourself.
TAPE: [hellos and laughter]
NARRATION: Not your typical scene in a nursing or any other home for that matter. It quickly livens up the atmosphere and brings smiles to faces that were minutes ago virtually expressionless. Bethke forges ahead with another exercise, one she used last time she visited.
TAPE: BETHKE: Remember there was three tones to laughter ... it was the hee-hee ... try that one. Remember that? Now you remember. Ok, well that's good. Do you remember the ha-ha-ha from the chest? And do you remember the ho-ho-ho from the belly? Let's try that.
NARRATION: If this all seems rather silly ... that's the point. It may be grief therapy for Bethke but for the residents of the nursing home ... it's simply a good time ... and they end the afternoon with a sing-along. Star Riggi is the Life Enrichment Coordinator for the home.
TAPE: RIGGI: They don't laugh a lot you know. There's not a lot of things going on in their lives at this age in their life that they would be laughing. So when the people bring in the laughter and make them laugh it's good for their whole body and their whole being, you know, cheers their day and this carries on through the night.
NARRATION: After a while ... you learn to recognize people by their laugh. Some are nasal ... some are guttural ... some like Bethke's are reinvented after tragedy. They build slowly over time to a rousing contagious crescendo.
TAPE: [Bethke laugh]
NARRATION: For Columbia Radio News, I'm Michael Vuolo.
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