LEWISTON — The whole “mom-minivan” ecosystem of lunch boxes, video games and after-school pickups makes it tougher to be a mother than it was a generation ago, figures comedienne Karen Morgan.

The days of “go outside and play” have dwindled to a lonely few minutes. 

So when her youngest of three children, Mac, finally began school, she gave the boy a kiss on the forehead and the bus driver a kiss on the mouth, she joked.

“And boy, was she surprised,” Morgan said. She went in her house and prepared for a day of leisure with her robe, slippers and a newspaper.

One can only guess that the comedienne who made the final seven in a nationwide Nickelodeon TV search for America’s funniest mom also found time to write. The Georgian-turned-Mainer now performs at comedy clubs across the country, using bits of her life to make audiences laugh.

“The kids think I make fun of them,” she told people Thursday at the Great Falls Forum lecture series. “I say, ‘I’m making fun of me being the mother of you.'”

For more than 30 minutes, Morgan told stories of her blind date with her husband, a house builder from Boston, her transformation from trial lawyer to comedienne and her three kids: Axel, Sabra and Mac.

As she rolled out the stories, she referred to Mac as “Seabiscuit,” since she gave birth to him while watching the Kentucky Derby. She talked of her body’s adjustment to middle age and her bafflement at getting older.

She forgets her own age sometimes and has lost touch with much of the popular culture.

“You could see it in my magazines,” she said. “I don’t know any of the people in ‘People’ anymore.”

One highlight has been in watching her mother spoil her grandchildren.

“It’s fun to see my mother, who used to spank me for getting dirty, let the children play with pudding on the floor,” Morgan said.

And though her comedy is not yet a full-time job, she said she was uncertain whether she could ever go back into the courtroom without making jokes.

“I don’t know what I could do,” she said. “Then again, they always used to say a laughing jury never convicts.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Comedienne Karen Morgan talks about becoming a “tweezer,” a name for those between middle age and old age, at which point she and her husband began reading the obituaries regularly. Morgan, a trial lawyer turned comedienne, spoke Thursday at the Great Falls Forum lecture series in Lewiston.

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