“I just view it as a gift,” the comedian told The Post-Journal. “OK. You know, the same way that some people are, are great at nursing or some people are really good at like masonry or so it’s, it’s just a gift.”

Foxworthy is scheduled to perform at the National Comedy Center’s Lucille Ball Comedy Festival at the Northwest Arena on Aug. 5 with two shows, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

It has been two years in the making since Foxworthy was originally scheduled for the 2020 Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, and then 2021 — both canceled due to the pandemic. It is NCC’s first festival live and in-person in three years.

“I’m just thrilled there’s a comedy center somewhere. I know I’m a little biased, but there ought to be one,” Foxworthy said.

Jeff Foxworthy attends the “Bring the Funny” premiere event at Rockwell Table and Stage on Wednesday, June 26, 2019, in Los Angeles. Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP

“I think it’s very cool that there actually is a place that acknowledges this about comedy,” he said of NCC. “I’ve been doing this a long time, but that was kind of the, the one in my mind that’s circled. I’m like, this was special. This one’s different. Because you’re going to a place where people recognize and appreciate the art form.”

The comedian said he was drawn to comedy at an early age and remembers watching comedians perform on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

“I remember as a little kid, my parents would watch the Tonight Show and from my room I could hear it,” Foxworthy said.. “And I wasn’t really interested in the actors, but if it was a stand-up comic, I would get out of bed and I could like peek through where the door closed at the hinges.”

At a young age, he didn’t think about the possibility of being a comedian.

“I was just fascinated with the idea of making people laugh. And it’s funny, like, if you go back and talk to people that I grew up with, they’re not surprised that I became a comedian,” he added

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy performs at “1 Night. 1 Place. 1 Time.: A Heroes and Friends Tribute to Randy Travis” at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in Nashville, Tenn. Photo by Laura Roberts/Invision/AP

Foxworthy said he didn’t know being a comedian was a career option and thought he had to get up every morning and go to a job that he hated, but he remembered being really scared on his first night of performing as a stand-up comedian.

“But literally a minute into it, it was like bells and whistles were going off, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is this is what I want to do,'” he said.

Soon after he quit his job at IBM, and embarked on a journey that has continued for three decades.

“I can’t think of anything else that I would rather have spent my life doing,” he said.

There are many forms of comedy, including radio, TV sitcoms, movies, and now podcasts. The result that each form shares is the ability to make people laugh. He said stand-up comedy is very subjective because there have been times when he has written new material and he thinks it’s going to be well-received and then it’s not.

Then there are other times when he has written new material, thinking it’s not very good, and people can’t stop laughing. He said in today’s societal and political environment, it is more difficult just because people kind of lost the ability to laugh at themselves.

Foxworthy writes new material on an ongoing basis.

“Sometimes it just begins with a couple of words,” he said. “You will hear a couple of words and go, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’ I look back, and even like some of this stuff I’m doing now, it’s like looking back on your childhood and going, ‘Hey, do you remember this.'”

The biggest change since his beginning, he said, is the way his material is presented. In the early days he envisioned bits (jokes) like clay where he if received a laugh for one, he would add another to it. After a month or two, he would have a bit that spanned at least five minutes.

Now he presents his bits in an opposite way. His bits now are much longer and he has to remove material from them.

The result is the same.

He recalled a bit about how he and his wife pack a suitcase for a trip.

“I literally sat down and wrote a 30-minute bit about that, and then would go on stage and start playing with it,” he said. “And I would, instead of adding clay, I would start cutting things away. Like, OK, this part works, this part doesn’t work. Let me cut that off. And both kind of end up at the same place. But I find, you know, when I was younger, my bits were five minutes long. Now they’re 20 minutes long.”

“I’m not a one-liner guy. I am more of a storytelling guy,” he added.

Foxworthy said as a comedian, he is trying to find commonalities between people. If some people lean to the right politically or lean to the left politically, were having a discussion, eventually they would agree on 85% of what they talked about.

“So the comic in me always is looking whether I’m playing in Birmingham, Alabama, or Jamestown, New York, I’m looking for what we have in common,” he said.

He said comedians influence each other. Foxworthy will say that he learns from other comedians, even if he is touring with them. Early in his career, after his set was done, he would sit on the side of the stage and observe how the other comedians would deliver their material.

“I’ve often said that you want to be an actor,” he said. “You go to acting school. You want to be a musician. You go to music school. I said there is no comedy school. There is not one anywhere you want to be a comic you hang out with comics.”

“I’m not just a comedian. I’m a fan of comedy.”