№ 634. Robert Fulghum

Searching for Laugh

Fulghum, a voracious reader, is the first to admit that ''Kindergarten'' is not great literature. Some of it, he freely admits, is the ''worst kind of heart-rending daddy drivel imaginable,'' the literary equivalent of happy-face buttons - cheery conversational revelries on such diverse subjects as hide-and-seek, spider webs, Crayola crayons, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ty Cobb's batting average. Not without charm, the essays seem to appeal to the same instinct that makes the proprietor of a 24-hour grille in Moab decorate the walls of her restaurant with perky sayings like ''Square meals make round people'' and ''Is there life before coffee?''

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, whose own book of reflective essays, ''When Bad Things Happen to Good People,'' was also a phenomenal best seller, believes that Fulghum's popularity can be explained thus: ''In a world of complex ethical decisions, he cuts through the details and says 'at the heart are a few simple rules. You can be a moral person; it's not as complicated as it seems.' ''

FULGHUM'S ESSAYS REAFFIRM THE SANCTITY OF THE ordinary. He does not preach, and rarely mentions God, but his book has a strong spiritual component. He focuses on the transcendental stuff of everyday life - shoe repair men, raking leaves and emptying the sink strainer. Not quite preacher, not quite regional humorist, he is a hybrid folk fabulist - a sort of Norman Vincent Bombeck.

 

The Ohio State University

 

OUTSIDE THE Edmonds Unitarian Church, in Seattle, where Fulghum served as part-time minister from 1966 until 1985, is a stretch of lawn littered with hundreds of dandelions. The congregation dedicated this patch of ground in Fulghum's honor upon his retirement in 1985, at 48. ''I was speechless beyond belief,'' he said one afternoon at the church. ''It said they heard me. I take this ground very seriously.''

More than anything else, it is Robert Fulghum's years as a minister and teacher that give his stories resonance. ''Being human and alive is a pretty lonely deal,'' he said, ''no matter how intimate or lovely your relationships are.''

His perspectives on the commonality of human experience have been gleaned from hundreds of weddings, funerals, hospital rooms and mortuaries. All that birth, death, and renewal makes for prime storytelling fodder. Distributing someone's remains from 2,000 feet over Bellingham Bay, Wash., in a Cessna, Fulghum had the ashes fly back in his face. ''How do you brush off those ashes?'' he asks with mock seriousness. ''Do you go like this?'' (polite dusting gestures) ''Or like this?'' (frantic pawing).

 

Cartoonist Group