Long car drives are good for sweeping out the sticky cobwebs. Lotsa time to think. On my way back from the writing conference I recently attended in Dayton, I had 375 highway miles to review the stimulating weekend, to relive many new stories.
The conference’s real name is the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. Held at the University of Dayton, it is named for Erma, the housewife humorist and distinguished alumna. Erma began writing for her school newspaper in junior high school. And she never quit.
Dayton is a Catholic university. It was Brother Tom Price, Erma’s English professor, who told her, “You can write.” It became her mantra. Eventually, she became a thrice-weekly syndicated columnist for over 900 newspapers. And despite raising three children and enduring kidney dialysis, she kept that pace for 31 years. That statistic staggers me. I’m often bonkers just cranking out one column a week.
Erma was fall-down-laughing funny. But she was also deeply thoughtful on subjects that grabbed us and kept us reading. When I grow up, I want to be just like Erma.
I identify with her bookworm childhood, all those hours we both spent in the library. And I, too, began to write for our school newspaper when the '50s rock-and-roll craze arrived. Writing humor wasn’t in my teenage wheelhouse — not with something as serious as Bill Haley and the Comets on my brain.
My high school English teacher, Miss Hurley, gave me encouragement similar to what Erma received from Brother Price. She was kind and I did well in her class. But I wasn’t savvy enough to get the real meaning of her message. Winning the American Legion Essay contest wasn’t going to get me to The New Yorker. I had no idea what to do with writing ability. Write for a newspaper? Fifteen-year-old me knew that only men were reporters. Opportunity didn’t knock often in the small mill town where I grew up. As I watched people around me struggle, especially women, career planning didn’t come naturally.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have become an English major. My mother said, “English? All an English major can do is teach school,” the one profession I was sure I didn’t want any part of. Teaching English? Nyet. Nein.
The craziest part? I wound up teaching in industry and at the college level. And loved it. Who knew?
But back to Erma. She knew exactly what she wanted. Her writing propelled her into a television career, then eventually her popularity and influence led her to heroic prominence in the women’s movement.
Her irreverent voice despairing of dirty dishes, dieting and diarrhea diapers echoed inside me as I wrangled with early marriage and parenthood. For me, when Erma was eternally silenced by complications from a kidney transplant in 1996, it was the day the laughter died. The country mourned as the light went out on our necessary fix of humor, sass and life’s messy struggles. Her family honored her through a biennual writing competition and this wildly successful educational conference that's now been around for more than 25 years.
My mental meanderings on the highway were about the conference itself. Meeting up again with some 2024 acquaintances was fun. A few even slid into friendship. Secondly, I truly was the oldest person there. The majority of the attendees appeared to be in their middle 40s to late 60s, some 70s. I was the only white-haired student who slogged to every class at the speed of a wounded aardvark. The new Erma tote bags were long-handled and large — easily filled. It wouldn’t stay on my sloped shoulder, so I dragged it behind me. Between every class a nice someone would ask if they could carry it for me. I told them, “No thanks, it’s my rudder.“
Every omelet, every sandwich and every cookie break between classes was an occasion to meet another interesting author. I met fellow students from Oregon, Alabama and Ireland. I met novelists, children’s authors, playwrights, poets, magazine feature writers, cartoonists and even a few columnists. We varied from newbies hoping to learn their way in, to heavily published success stories.
I met a double handful of writers like me who ply their trade in both humor and human interest, much as Erma Bombeck did. Some days the humor bug is there, or the subject just turns out to be naturally funny. Other days, the subject that leaps to mind is curious, maybe informational or sometimes serious. I always hope that if I am fascinated with this pepperoni pizza or that loud robin, maybe my readers will be, too.
I came away from this dynamic conference inspired to keep on learning, keep writing and keep those cobwebs at bay. Thank you, Erma.
— Marcy O'Brien
Marcy O’Brien of Warren, Pennsylvania, is a 2024 winner of the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition in the global human interest category. Her essays won honorable mentions twice in the past in the biennial contest sponsored by the Washington-Centerville Public Library. Marcy, who began to write “as she entered her dotage,” has written a humor/human interest column for more than 20 years for the Warren Times Observer, the Jamestown Post Gazette and the Dunkirk (NY) Observer. She has written features for The Washington Post, Boston Globe Magazine, Yankee Magazine and many more. A member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, she recently compiled a collection of her warm and funny columns into a debut book, Rounding Third (Shorehouse Books).