Humorous bonding moment teaches unexpected lesson

I was in Kailua town with my 10-year-old granddaughter, Nakaylee, when we came upon a hen with a half-dozen fluffy yellow chicks in tow.

"The babies are so cute," Kaylee squealed. "I want to catch one and take it home for a pet."

"I think not," I said, explaining that it would be cruel to separate a young hatchling from its mother.

She pledged that she would shower the young bird with more care than the harried hen could ever provide with so many others to look after, forcing me to resort to the hard truth.

"Chickens are one of the dumbest animals on the face of this planet and probably the worst pets," I said.

Still she tried to debate the point so I said, "I’ll prove it to you when we get home."

Kaylee was on me for the proof the minute we got in the door.

I fired up the iPad and searched YouTube the answer to any geezer’s question about what technology is good for for the Smothers Brothers, the hip comics of the 1960s folk scene I was drawn to as a teen.

I found what I was looking for, a bit called "Mom Always Liked You Best," in which Tom offers seemingly irrefutable evidence for accusing Dick of enjoying maternal favoritism: "Mom gave you a dog and I didn’t get to have a dog."

Tom: "More than anything else in the world, I wanted to have a dog."

Dick: "You know you had your own pet already."

Tom: "Crummy chicken. It’s no fun playing with a chicken. They don’t bark good."

From the first line, Kaylee was laughing her guts out at jokes that dated back half a century.

Dick: "You are always telling me, Mom liked you best, Mom liked you best.’ Do you want to know why Mom liked me best?"

Tom: "Huh? I never knew Mom liked you best."

Before long, she had forgotten about the chicken and was happily watching other Smothers Brothers gags the pumas in the crevices, the skit where Dick sang the Lerner and Loewe love song "I Talk to the Trees" while Tom ranted, "Who talks to trees? He must be a nut."

For the historical record, Clint Eastwood was the nut who sang the song in "Paint Your Wagon," after cleaning up from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

But history aside, it was a wonderful intergenerational moment for grandfather and granddaughter to bond in laughter while leaving the poultry to Colonel Sanders.

It was also a sobering lesson in human evolution when I realized that what I found funny in high school and college is on the intellectual level of today’s 10-year-olds.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.