(1930; director: James Parrott)
Looking back, I’ve spent my whole life stumbling and fumbling. I’m still alive and have all of my limbs so I guess that I haven’t done too badly, but my sharpest memories of the past are of the mistakes. The pratfalls. The goof-ups. Slipping on a banana peel and crashing into the fine china (in the figurative sense).
I’m not complaining though, because I think most of us are like that. As I write this, we just went through November elections in the USA and we’ve been watching some of the most powerful people on Earth stumble and fumble for months. No one is above it.
Stumbling and fumbling is life. Just be careful and don’t kill anyone or yourself. Don’t screw around near open flames. Say no to addictive drugs. Don’t run with scissors. Practice safe stumbling and fumbling.
Make peace with your capacity to stumble and fumble and watch your sense of humor about yourself emerge. Watch your ability to roll with life’s many punches emerge.
You might also acquire an appreciation for the genius of Laurel and Hardy, cinema’s greatest stumblers and fumblers.
We’re coming up on a hundred years since these early shorts had Depression-era audiences rolling in the aisles, but as I sit in my living room in my underwear here in the 21st century going through the 10-disc Essential Collection DVD set, I find myself relating fiercely to this madness.