By Lori EhdeIn high school Carole Achterhof always found a way to write humorously, no matter what the writing assignment."The teacher kept me after school one day," Achterhof recalled. "She said, ‘I don’t know what to do with you, Carole. Life is not funny. Do you expect to make money by being funny?’ … I wish she were alive today," Achterhof said.Today, Achterhof is not only making a living being funny – both writing and speaking – but she spent 30 years as an English teacher besides.In 1996, Achterhof retired from teaching English and Spanish at Adrian High School, and last week she announced she’s retiring from her column writing as well."After 22 years, 1,144 columns and countless wonderful memories, the time has come to say good-bye," she wrote in an e-mail to the publications that carry her humor column.Writing career started at the Star HeraldAchterhof got her start in column writing in 1983 as editor of the Rock County Star Herald.She titled her personal column, "Letters from the Farm," because she and Roger were living on a farm near Luverne at the time.While she enjoyed covering local news, the column allowed her to write humorously – mostly about personal experiences, such as plucking chickens on the farm and gaining weight during pregnancies."There was such a great response," Achterhof said.She was at the paper for only a year before she returned to teaching, but in that time she remembers major accomplishments and major blunders. She implemented as policy that women should always be referred to in the paper by their first and last names. "It was always Mrs. Bill Jones," Achterhof said. "Here these women were doing great things, and they didn’t even have an identity."A major blunder she remembers is a typo in a recipe that required wrapping a mixture in plastic and refrigerating. The version that made its way to print said, "Crap in plastic and refrigerate."A year isn’t long at any job, but in that time her column drew a following, and Achterhof kept writing. She started with a handful of newspapers and now has 50 publications in three states on her mailing list. "I think it’s best to say good-bye when you’re at your peak," she said. "Too many people hang on, and then your work becomes dull, and it becomes a chore."She said she never had mental blocks for column topics but said she could see a day when that might come, and she didn’t want that day to come."I always had a pile of ideas to draw on," she said. "Now, I’ll have to use them on my family when I corner them at the table … or on the golf course. You don’t just retire from humor."Her columns have been fodder for five books Achterhof has published, including her first one, "Never Trust a Size 3," and her most recent one, "How to Pose With a Fish."Humor is mechanism for dealing with stressFor Achterhof, humor has been more than a means for making a living. It’s been a survival mechanism for dealing with hardships in the Achterhof family.In 1980, their fourth and youngest daughter, Katie, died of cancer – neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer that strikes eight in a million.She was 7 years old and a first-grader at Luverne Elementary.In 1978, their second daughter, Linda, who was 12 at the time, went blind from a cyst in the center of her brain. After eight surgeries, her sight was restored, but she still has surgeries to control infections.In 1986, the Achterhofs lost all their farmland. When land values plummeted, the banks called up the loans they had taken out to pay for the surgeries."Roger had a job (at FGL Commodities) and I had a job, but we lost all the tangible stuff," Achterhof said.In 1987, their third daughter, Marta, suffered a traumatic brain injury in a single car accident. She was 16 at the time of the accident, and she was 18 when she woke up from her coma two years later.She’s now 34 and lives with her parents. "She continues to improve," Achterhof said. "She walks by herself on parallel bars … she’s very bright."Achterhof said their oldest daughter, Kristin, is a litigation attorney in Chicago. "But she didn’t escape the family trauma," she said. "She’s still the brunt of all the lawyer jokes and all the blond jokes."Reaping what you sowAfter years of dealing with her children’s pain, Achterhof last year was faced with her own medical emergency. Doctors removed a golf-ball-sized tumor from Achterhof’s brain. It was benign, but it required major surgery."My family treated my surgery like it was a big laugh," Achterhof said, "because that’s what I’ve taught them."In reality, the procedure was no laughing matter. Recovery required staples across her head from ear to ear. But she can’t resist joking about it anyway."They pulled my whole scalp down over my nose," Achterhof said. "And when they pulled my scalp back up, they inadvertently removed the crow’s feet around my eyes. It was probably a $50,000 eye lift."The tumor was removed from her left frontal lobe, the part of the brain that determines personality."I didn’t know what would happen to me in surgery," she laughed. "I was afraid I’d wake up a Republican – but you can’t print that. I know how people are in Rock County."She said she recovered nicely, but then she had to, because her daughter, Linda, had two brain surgeries before and one after Achterhof’s."Linda has brain surgeries like the rest of us have common colds – she bounces right back. So the pressure was on for me to get better," Achterhof said.Humor never retiresGiving up her columns won’t mean Achterhof will give up humor. She’ll still be busy with her speaking engagements and stand-up comedy.She’s been addressing audiences more than 30 times a year in 19 states and 135 different cities over the past six years.Her audiences vary from head injury support groups to nurses’ organizations to children. This weekend, she’ll be the guest speaker at a town celebration in Stickney, S.D.Her speaking engagements and even her comedy routines carry different messages, but they have a common theme: Humor is a survival mechanism."Humor is a mechanism for dealing with both professional and personal stress," Achterhof said."You have to live humor, and breathe it and eat it. It really helps you get through the rough spots in life … You can’t hope to find positive solutions with a dismal attitude."She said addressing live audiences gives her more freedom than she has with the written word."When you write humor, you have to take readers to the edge, while staying within the limitations of good taste," Achterhof said. "But it’s an unseen audience, so you can’t read their faces, you can’t see them clutching their chests or hear them gasping or see them rolling their eyes. With a live audience, you can go further."The Achterhofs lived near Luverne for 30 years and now live in Spirit Lake. Their home is in Jackson County and overlooks Little Spirit Lake.