Life's worhtwhile, if you'll just smile

Today a stranger asked me who makes me smile. The question (chi ti fa sorridere?) was written on a sheet of typing paper and taped to an old marble column in the piazza. Unlike the missing Bic at the bank, a pen was tied to a long string that blew in the wind and invited passersby to respond.

I wondered if it had been a school assignment, but for which class? Art? Philosophy? Literature? Or it could have been a teenage dare. Was the sign maker disguised in the distance hoping to catch their Mr. or Ms. Right secretly adding their name to the list?

If the author's mission was to get a smile, it was accomplished. Merely thinking about who makes you smile, inevitably makes you smile. Most people simply added a name. A few added hearts and stars. But my favorite wrote, "Who makes me smile? YOU. The one who asks me who makes me smile. You are a poet."    

In Chicago it was the 'Hi Guy' that made us smile. His bike, his t-shirt and his rainbow striped beanie all said the same thing -- Hi. He dotted the 'i's with smiley faces (before we had emojis). His only goal as he traveled through town was to make you smile. He said hi to everyone and most everyone said hi back. And usually that was enough to add two more smiley faces to the streets of the Windy City.

Dallas had the "Free Advice Guys". Every Sunday morning for nearly 20 years they set out a couple of chairs on a popular path around the lake and offered advice. I never accepted their services, but their FREE ADVICE sign made me smile. And in turn, maybe that smile was all the advice I really needed.

I was a kid when I learned from the Reader's Digests stacked on the back of the toilet that Laughter is the Best Medicine. I'd like to thank the stranger who left the 'Who Makes You Smile?' sign in the piazza for reminding me that smiling is the second best. If only all of the people whose names were written on that sign knew that they were someone else's happy pill.