What's Tony Thinking

On Banter

I spent some time yesterday with two older (even older than me) guys from church. They jointly own a beat-up flat-bed trailer that they use for all sorts of things, frequently helping people from the church and the community with various projects. They were helping me move a large-ish tree. We also stopped to load some lumber for a project they were working on at the nearby Methodist Camp.

Throughout our time together they were engaged in constant banter, back and forth kidding and teasing directed at one another, at themselves and occasionally in my direction. Their banter provided a lightness and levity to our prosaic tasks on a warm day. It turned our chores into fun.

It was like being with a couple of kids. That feeling that was heightened when, as they were paying for the lumber, I crossed the street to buy the three of us outrageously large soft ice cream cones. There we were, three old guys licking away at our ice-cream cones, trying to stay ahead of their melting.

Their repartee got me thinking about banter, which the dictionary defines as, “the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.”

Pondering such, I realized that out here in rural northeastern Oregon banter is often the lingua franca. When I go into the hardware store there is always bantering to be heard and participated in, sometimes with acquaintances and sometimes with strangers.  The several employees banter back and forth amiably among themselves.

There’s a certain art to it, as in improv theater. You are playing off whatever another person gives you to work with.

What functions does such banter serve? In the case of my two octogenarian friends, it was clearly an expression of affection, one that was elemental to their long friendship and many shared endeavors. It also seems to be a way of making life, sometimes in the midst of literal and figurative heavy lifting, light-hearted. Banter says, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” And, “whatever the work may be, we can have some fun while we’re at it.”

My curiosity led me to enter “Articles about Banter” for an internet search. I wasn’t really surprised by what popped up, but it was revealing. Article after article linked banter to bullying, workplace or sexual harassment, and “micro-aggression.” I couldn’t find a one that had something good to say about banter. Instead, articles warned of banter’s dangers, excesses, innuendos and general inappropriateness. Beware banter!

I get it. Bullying is awful, and especially among children, cruel. Harassment is real. Jerks pretend something is humorous that isn’t. What seems fun to someone may be hurtful to another.

And yet, given my recent experience with my two pals, all these warnings and the various alarms they sounded, made me sad. There is a comic element to life. And good comedy reminds us the life, despite our foibles and misfortunes, life often turns out in unexpected good fortune and joy.

The many dire warning about banter seemed a sign of a culture where we’ve lost something, a certain lightness, a comic element. A culture where we’ve learned to be constantly on-guard and ready to taken offense. Where we catastrophize early and often.

When I think about it, I realize I don’t hear much banter in a place like Seattle, where we live the balance of the year. Oh, some in the company of good friends. But seldom in casual interactions in stores or among strangers encountered on the street.

Generally people in Seattle don’t interact with people they meet on the street or in a store at all. Walking on by with eyes down and ears plugged with a device is more often the norm. Here, that’s less common. People greet or acknowledge one another on the street, and it’s a general practice to wave when you pass someone on the road in your car or truck. Perhaps the distance and anonymity is just inevitable in an urban setting and center?

Suffice it to say that the banter of my two friends left me both smiling and entertained, and feeling that life — despite ample evidence to the contrary — is good.