Dr. Steve Allen Jr. instructed under the seminar title "He Who Laughs Last, Lasts." It was packed. Son of entertainers Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, he maintains a family practice in upstate New York. He began his talk with a brain­twister. He said, "Never underestimate the unimportance of everything." With that he passed out scarves to 500 people and proceeded to instruct them in "Health Through Creative Silliness."

 

His "guilt-free drop" quickly became a crowd pleaser.

 

Scarves floated lazily around the room with frantic hands plucking at them. Occasionally it accidentally developed into a two-person run-around. But to Allen's absolute un-surprise, all did learn how to juggle... after a fashion. But the instant benefit was the fun most people had in turning the kid inside them loose again.

 

"My goal is not necessarily to teach people how to juggle, but to get them feeling playful and laughing." he said. "I try to do two things. One is to lay the intellectual and emotional groundwork for humor, which really does have positive biological benefits. The second is just to let people know they can be playful and should seek it out each day."

 

Simonton and Allen are speakers at each of the institute's seminars. At the

next one, scheduled for March 17-20 in Anaheim, Calif., Allen will appear with his father (who is not a juggler) to make a presentation on "Entertaining Healers and Healing Entertainers."

 

The younger Allen said stress reduction seminars have become a larger and larger part of his professional life since he learned to juggle from the Klutz book in 1982. He now does 30-40 seminars a year, including the two with Simonton at The Power of Life and Play conferences.

 

"I was asked to speak on employee health at Cornell shortly after that," he said. "I figured people would learn better if they had a good time, so I took along 300 tennis balls. It turned out to be the best thing I did there.

 

"Then I met Dave Finnigan at the IJA Purchase convention and he asked me if I had tried using scarves instead of tennis balls. I came back with about 100 dozen and have done programs now for 75,000 people! "

 

The three bearded doctors, together, looking a bit like the Smith Brothers of old cough drop fame, did much to enhance the lighthearted mood of the weekend.

 

Participants agreed that if this was the beginning of the decline of somberness in medicine... it showed exceptional promise!

 

Dawn: The day had come when we knew we must do the undone. One hundred miles to our west lay Mystery Hill in Blowing Rock, N.C. It had never been juggled.

 

Owners Wayne and Gay Underwood met us at the door, astonished we would attempt such a feat. As we carried our props and camera equipment into the Mystery House we began to realize the challenge.