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The Other Famous Writer in the Family
By Eric Bombeck
There is an age-old question in philosophy and theology that queries: Do we really have free will? Let’s settle that right here. I have no idea. But it feels like I really had no choice but to become a writer.
Throughout my life whenever I told people my last name, they would ask, “Are you related Erma Bombeck?” In case you don’t know, she was a famous writer who wrote a daily column in over 900 newspapers and penned 13 books, most of which were best sellers. She did this all between 1965 and 1996 and still had time to raise a family and appear on the TV show, Good Morning America.
When I said I was related, they would say “ No way!”
“Way.” You can see the irony that me, another Bombeck, would be writing for a living.
Is writing in my genes? The answer is probably no. Erma was related to me through her husband, Bill. So since it wasn’t inherited, maybe, just maybe I was destined to be a writer.
Consider this, and I am not making this up. Many years before I purchased the newspaper The Way It Was, I heard an inner voice tell me that I would one day be writing. Having never written much of anything, I was a little skeptical. Then in 2012, I purchased the paper and it came true. Maybe I had no choice in the matter. Mark one up for the people who believe that there is no free will.
It is a great regret of mine that I never met Erma Bombeck before she passed in 1996. The only family memento we have from her is a reply to a letter my brother sent her in 1992.
At the time my brother, Jim, did one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen. When his wife graduated with her master’s degree, he invited everyone to come to her graduation party. You might think, What’s remarkable about that?
When I say he invited everyone, I mean everyone.
Months before the party, he sat down and wrote out invites to hundreds and hundreds of famous people. Letters went out to all the English royalty at the time, all the current and past presidents, and dozens of presidents and prime ministers from around the world. He wrote senators, movie and TV stars, Pittsburgh Pirates and famous educators like Joe Clark, the baseball bat-carrying principal played by Morgan Freeman in the movie Lean On Me. The list goes on and on, a herculean effort. Every day for months he made sure he got the mail before Jan did, so she didn’t catch on. The plan was not to actually have the people show up. It was an effort to compile a huge scrapbook of famous people sending congratulatory notes to Jan.
Mother Teresa wrote a nice note, and the cat was almost out of the bag when Bishop Desmond Tutu sent flowers from South Africa before the party. I imagined the florist with a cigarette hanging from her lips taking that call. “Flowers from Desmond Tutu? Sure, I suppose you want to send them to Eleanor Roosevelt? Quit with the prank calls! It's prom season.” Jim even thought to write Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) and was dismayed to receive a letter saying that the beloved Dr. Seuss had passed away.
On the day of her graduation, Jim presented his wife with a scrapbook packed full of congratulatory notes, including the Queen of England, Pittsburgh Pirate Andy Van Slyke and, of course, Erma Bombeck.
Erma's letter is accurate. We are related to the Walter Bombeck family from Brookfield, Pennsylvania. Our cousin, Bill Bombeck, had moved to Dayton, Ohio, and met Erma Fiste while working at the newspaper and attending the University of Dayton. They got married and moved into a house across the street from talk show host Phil Donahue. Phil helped to put her on the map, booking her on his local and, later, national talk show numerous times. (Maybe that was destiny?)
The question remains. Do we have free will? Aunt Erma rejected the philosophical answer and addressed it spiritually, realizing maybe we are asking the wrong question. It's not do we have free will, but what do we do with it? “When I stand before God at the end of my life," she wrote, "I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.'"
— Eric Bombeck
Eric Bombeck is the owner and publisher of the weekly newspaper The Way It Was in Sharpsville, Pennsylvania. He also hosts “The Bombeck Show” on WPIC Radio.