The Joke or The Punch Line

As I am sure I have mentioned before, in October of 2004 I was one of 45 educators from the United States to receive an invitation from the Oxford Round Table, the international think tank, to present a paper on the teaching of reading and writing at Oxford University. And so, the following summer, on August 1, 2005 at Oxford Student Union Debate Hall, I presented a paper entitled Reading 1st: the Teaching of Reading and Writing. It seems so easy to say now, but when I got that invitation, it seemed to come out of nowhere. I was a high school British Literature teacher, but was then teaching English in Middle School. Throughout the months of October and November of 2004, I was filled with questions, but finally accepted the invitation in December. Why me? Maybe this was some kind of mistake; and, if I accept it, how embarrassing would that be if, in fact, they asked the wrong guy?

I wrote two poems over the ensuing years about this experience. The first, a serious one, I will share with you tomorrow night. The second, the one I am posting here, was written later, when I appreciated the humor of my distress.

Two nights before I took the plane over to England, I was watching TV. I had finished the paper, my presentation, had packed, bought a new suit and new luggage, and made all the preparations I needed to prepare to depart. I was looking for relaxation, a diversion, a little humor. I found it in a Laurel and Hardy movie called "A Chump at Oxford." Was it an omen?

The Joke or the Punch Line
Christopher Bogart

Why is it that sometimes, something happens in life,
an invitation to fate that is just so astounding,
that it seems a joke,
just one of those jokes that just isn’t funny?
You know, not ha ha kind of funny,
not humorous at all,
but a delirious deception that leaves you with doubts.

Is it really a joke? Or is it a punch line?

It appears so incredible, so really unreal
that it forces you to question your very existence.
“Is it me they are asking?”
You’re alone in the dark, wracking your brain
in a desperate attempt to avoid a crushing fall.
Are you sure that they got the right Christopher Bogart?
So you Google yourself.

There are so many others.
How about the CEO of AOL Time Warner, Christopher P. instead of me?
Or Christopher B. the PhD. from Stamford, Connecticut.
There’s also a Bogart who makes bamboo rods.
Or the one that gives Tantric massage and has sat on a yak.
Or the weightlifter that can lift, with his back, over six hundred pounds,
or the one who spies quarks, old Christopher W.
And then there’s always Humphrey.
Not a Chris, but a Bogart, none the less.
Am I that cool that it turns out all along
that I have been truly fortune’s fool?

Well, every joke seems to have a punch line.
Mine comes when they ask
how is that I came to apply for that chance
at my joking reality;
and I, little Christopher B.,
get to reply,
no longer in doubt,
just very excited,
“I didn’t apply.
I was invited.”