南向き翻訳事務所 岩渕デボラ ブログ

Bill Cosby has finally decided to accept the Mark Twain Prize for Humor.

My brother and sister and I owe our sense of humor in large part to Bill Cosby. I remember lying on the floor at somebody’s house, listening to Bill Cosby’s records. There must have been several families there, filling up every available spot, and we couldn’t stop laughing. We had never heard anything so funny in our lives–and even the adults were wiping their eyes! It wasn’t long before we had our own collection of Bill Cosby records, which we virtually memorized.

We recited Cosby’s monologue on getting his tonsils out on our way to the hospital each time one of us had our tonsils out: “And you’re going to get ALL THE ICE CREAM YOU CAN EAT!” we screamed in unison. My mom later said she was afraid it was going to make us scared (”Don’t tell me that you KILLED JOHNSON!”)  but it left nothing to our imagination, and we knew that, somewhere in it all, there WOULD BE ICE CREAM!

Bill Cosby taught us how to be funny. How to be funny in a way that was not offensive, not crass, and not bullying. He was someone the whole family could enjoy and it made for some fun times together. Bill Cosby has always been an advocate for education, and I’d just like to say that his work and his presence was a secure island of values and useful instruction for me as I grew up in the US in the 1960s and 70s.