"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." Erma Bombeck
Back in February of 1927, a woman was born whose typewriter tickled America. Erma Bombeck's honesty and wry sense of humor scored a direct hit on society's collective funny bone during the first part of the 20th century:
"My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint!"
Born Erma Louise Fiste, she grew up during the Depression and attended high school in Dayton,Ohio. Before even graduating from college, she started writing for local papers. Working as a journalist was a rare occupation for a woman in the 1940s.Writing was not really considered "women's work" back then, but fortunately she decided to go against the grain.
Erma married her high school sweetheart, Bill Bombeck, at the age of 22 and left the work force after the birth of the first of her three children. She described herself as the typical housewife in the 1950s. A woman, whose 24-hour day was filled with childcare, parent/teacher meetings, housekeeping, and the art of keeping up appearances. But soon Erma began to see humor all around her. Once again, she rolled sheets of paper in her typewriter and began to write.Her weekly humor column called At Wit's End poked fun of suburban family life:
"Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop offs at tedium and counter productivity"
She was the "Ying" to Lucille Ball's "Yang". Where Lucille Ball devised outlandish situations for television audiences, Erma turned anecdotes from real life into relatable comedy.She helped us laugh at our two-year old's tantrums, after school carpools, and losing our mind in parenthood:
"You become about as exciting as your food blender. The kids come in, look you in the eye, and ask if anybody's home"
She teased us about our carefullycoiffed hairdos, the allure of green lush grass growing over septic tanks,and the magnetic pull of shopping malls:
"Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds,the danger of being trampled to death,and the ecstasy of the purchase."
Life in Erma Bombeck's America was all about making fun of the proverbial Jones' and everyone got the joke. Her column expanded to twice and then three times weekly.By the late 1960s, over 200 newspapers carried her column. Ten years later, men and women could read her honest depiction of married life in more than 800 papers and laugh at themselves too.
"The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again."
But Erma Bombeck died in 1996 after a failed kidney transplant and we lost one of laughter's greatest cheerleaders. She had often talked of the importance of comedy. She said it was vital to encourage humor in all areas of life, because of its ability to cut to the core of humanity and to tie together the human experience:
"There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt."
It is hard to imagine a world without Erma Bombeck's courage to tell it like it is and to laugh about it at the same time. But Erma said that might have happened, had a teacher not encouraged her to develop her talent when society tried to smother it. And, fortunately for us, she said she decided to spend the next 50 years determined to foster her gifts.
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me'."
Erma Bombeck taught us many things about life's comedies, heavy breathing and all. But, most vividly, she showed us how we can influence the world when we have the courage to develop our own natural talents. That is the punch line. Let 's see who has the last laugh.
