Luckily, there was Paula Poundstone.

In between the radio and television reports with explosions in the background and an occasional, terrifying static, people laughed.

Wednesday evening, confusion, fear and anticipation filled many people’s minds as the United States and its allies made the first air strike in Iraq. Simultaneously, one student accompanied hundreds of others in an escape at the Carl Sandburg Auditorium.

If not for Paula Poundstone, sitting next to the “poptart section,” one student might have gone nuts. Jokes about cats and the “people on the left side of the plane” puking thanks to math problems forced upon them helped ease what one student was thinking about.

Thoughts of planes passing over Baghdad were not extinguished while laughing to tears about a particular Redcoat standing sternly by the auditorium’s exit.

And although Paula’s humor helped to keep one particular student numb, he could not help but think of a family that lived across the United States.

This family has one sister on the East Coast (Newark, N.J.) ready to protest the war in Washington D.C. this weekend. Another sister is trying to organize her life working for a minor league baseball team in Idaho Falls, Idaho, after moving from Boston, mass.

Mom was sitting at home in Bloomington, Ill. “comforting” two cats and a glass of wine after bowling an about 165 average on her league that night.

A father and step-mother tried to reassure themselves in Northfield, Mass. that this “horror” they have been dreading ever since the U.S. military got involved in Iraq will take as little toll as possible on the people involved.

Then guilt started to come into play. While people, some familiar and others not so familiar, were risking their lives thousands of miles away, one st;udent was feeling alone.

This was stupid, selfish, and unfair. There were men and women continents away from family, friends and hometowns who were going into battle.

But when one student thought of these men and women fighting in a war he didn’t believe in, images filled his head of soldiers’ eyes that expressed fear, anger, confusion and pain.

A shattering realization of those same eyes being shut abruptly and permanently awakened a need for a security lost long ago that only this student’s family could provide.

A terrible irony became apparent -to expect security at a time of war, the most insecure of all times, is ludicrous, but also normal.

This is why one student was grateful for Paula Poundstone, who gave hundreds of students an hour of laughter as a temporary antidote for the reality outside the auditorium.

So one student remained relatively sane as planes flew above an Arab land, students froze listening to television and radio broadcasts and a family remained spread across the United States.

All one student could do was pray, in his own way, for an early ending to a sudden beginning of a war that will take toll on many before reverting back to peace.

Thanks, Paula.