FARMINGTON—Standing up in front of a crowd and trying to make them laugh can be intimidating even for professional comedians but 73-year-old Cherry Jones didn’t let that stop her from making her debut at Wiseguys Comedy Club.

Jones is a resident at Legacy House of Park Lane in Farmington and she’s always wanted to do stand-up comedy. Now, because of a recently launched initiative at Legacy House called the No Regrets Club, her dream came true.

“We want to make sure that we are capturing all of the lifelong wishes and dreams that residents have,” said Executive Director Shauna Chavez. “Just because they’re older doesn’t mean that they can’t do what they’ve always wanted to do. So we came up with this club.”

It’s based on what a resident wants and they put in what they want to do, she said. “For example, we have Cherry that wanted to do stand-up her whole life. So she got to fulfill that dream. We have another resident who has Parkinson’s who has always wanted to race in a NASCAR race.”

Chavez said they were able to set up a connection with salt flats and make that happen. “He’ll be riding with a driver and doing that. We have another resident that is a bit younger and he’s disabled and he’s always wanted to skydive so we’re going to make that something he’ll be able to do.”

“I’ve always been a storyteller,” said Jones. “If I can get anybody to listen to me I’m going to talk. I like to tell funny stuff that’s happened to me over a period of time. I taught school for 32 years so you’re just an automatic storyteller when you teach elementary school.”

Jones said they’re stories that really happened to her. “I just get up there (on stage) and tell the story of what happened. I don’t have any set pieces. I’ve told them several times to some of the residents here and they’ve said ‘you’ve got to do that as a comedy routine somewhere.’”

Jones said she has no filter. “My sister teases me. She says ‘Cherry, if it goes through your head it does not have to come out your mouth’ but it usually does.”

Her twang adds to her funny delivery. “We’re from Texas. We moved here to be close to our grand babies.”

Some of the residents came with her to the show. “I was really nervous at first. We got in there and watched the others (comedians) and listened to them, some of them were funny and some were not. What was funny about mine was that it was stuff that actually happened to me. It wasn’t just telling jokes.”

One of her stories was about marijuana. “I’ve had a lot of back surgeries,” she told the audience. “My friend came from Texas to see us in Utah and she brought me a bunch of marijuana. I had it for a couple of months before I was going to try and take it. One day I was hurting a lot and I was at home by myself. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go over there and get that candy’ and I took a big piece of the marijuana.”

Jones continued her story and told the crowd that she started to feel funny. “I called my son and he said ‘what in the … did you do?’ I told him I took it and he said to go sit in a chair and stay still.”

They seemed to really like it, she said. “There was a group there, I didn’t know who they were, they hollered at me and said ‘we saw you on TV and you were so funny we decided we were going to all get together and come see you.’ So that was fun.”

“She had the crowd rolling,” said Chavez. “It was a wonderful experience for all to witness. They asked her to come back so it’s a definite possibility because at the end of the day, age is only a number.”