‘If I can make people laugh, I’ve made my day.’ Retiree uses comedy to brighten lives
After his audience gathered, Paul Ausland lifted the microphone, surveyed the room, and began.
“Here we are from Building B, that incomparable, that wonderful, that handsome, that adorable and humble, ........me,” he said, before quickly asking, “What do you expect you could get for $1.19?”
Ausland, 91, is a resident at Covenant Woods, an independent and personal care retirement community in Columbus. Once a month, he brings laughter and smiles to fellow residents with stand-up comedy.
“If I can make people laugh, I’ve made my day,” said Ausland after his February performance in Covenant Woods’ dining hall. “Just the fact that I may have lightened up their day for just a moment, just even a small moment, makes it all worth it for me.”
Fellow resident Barbara Kimbro said she’s known Ausland for 40 years. She said it doesn’t even take five minutes to discover Ausland’s a good nature.
“He just has that ability to keep everybody happy,” Kimbro said. “I’ve never seen him sad. He’s just an upbeat person.”
Ausland, an Army veteran and retired psychologist, said humor has helped him cope with life’s personal and professional challenges.
He said using humor helped his patients relax, and better understand themselves. While working at a psychiatric hospital, Ausland said he learned if people couldn’t laugh they were in deep trouble.
“So, we would do anything we could to get them to laugh at least once,” he said, “then we knew they were on the road to recovery.”
Ausland said humor helped him cope while being a caregiver for his first wife as her health declined in her final years of life. He said humor also saw him through a personal fight with cancer.
“I worked my way through a case of cancer, making jokes while I’m getting on the table for my radiation,” Ausland said. “When I left there the technician said ‘you know I’m gonna miss your lies that you keep telling about your side effects.”
Lisa Lewis, general manager at Covenant Woods, said Ausland’s monthly standup routine is one of several resident-led programs at Covenant Woods. She said having Ausland entertain fellow residents just made sense.
“He just makes your day because he’s going to put a smile on your face,” Lewis said, ” and to have a spirit like that amongst us, it’s a treasure.”
