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Love, Mama
By Teri Rizvi
Dear Andy:
Sorry to bother you at school, but we get worried when no one hears anything for three weeks. Please call and keep us posted. As I remember, you could dial left-handed…
Beyond Erma Bombeck’s prolific volume of professional work that's included in the Erma Bombeck Collection, project archivist Katie Jarrell is quick to show visitors a stack of letters she wrote to her son Andy when he taught school in American Samoa in 1980 and volunteered for the Peace Corps in Liberia in 1983.
Her newsy letters show that “she was a warm and caring mother (who) never lost her connection with her family just because she became famous. She was still very much a relatable and real mother," Jarrell said in a public radio interview about the Erma Bombeck Collection that’s now part of the University of Dayton’s Archives.
The letters offer a glimpse into Bombeck’s psyche as a mother. She spun humorous tales about mismatched socks and carpools in her columns, but, away from the typewriter, she was just like any other mother who worried about her children, cheered them on in their endeavors and sent the periodic care package.
“I think the older both of us become, the more I appreciate your gentleness and your love. I am so proud that you have the courage to do what a lot of people only talk about and never do. …There are a lot of people who talk a great game of life…but never do it,” she wrote Andy in a May 2, 1981, letter.
She filled her letters with news from the homefront — the health of his grandparents, the taping of her sitcom “Maggie,” the weather, the sight of the family dog Murray “stretched out in an obscene position on the carpet,” musings about celebrities and anecdotes about his father.
On good friend Phyllis Diller: “She’s quite crazy you know…but nice. She goes out shopping and so she won’t be recognized wears a nun’s habit. How many people do you know who dress as a nun in the daytime and does jokes at night?”
On Bob Hope: “He invited me to his home and the two of us sat there for three hours talking. I never expected that. He looks wonderful and doesn’t look 80 years old. Redwoods don’t look that good.”
On his father: “Daddy is off again. This time to the Grand Canyon. He’s part of a group of Arizonians to look at the state and try to figure out where it’s going. (I could tell him in two sentences. I could phone it in.)”
On motherhood: “I’m really sorry I fell apart at the airport. I knew I would. Mothers are like that. It’s not to give you a guilt trip. It’s just that I love you a lot and I knew I’d miss you and…face it. I’m menopausal.”
One theme ran throughout Bombeck’s letters: “I don’t want to discourage you from keeping in touch by phone or letter or drop a bottle in the bay…” In another letter, she lamented, “Also, if there’s anything you need or if you get lonesome, pick up the phone. We’re probably lonesome, too.”
There’s no truth to the rumor that Bombeck coined one of her signature phrases, “guilt: the gift that keeps on giving,” after reproaching Andy for not keeping in touch as often as a mother would like.
"As a son, I never understood why my mom would be worried,” said the retired schoolteacher. “As a father, I can't imagine why a son couldn't simply communicate, ‘I'm still breathing, Love Andy.’”
