FUNNY. That’s the F-word I usually focus on in my monthly blog post. But this month, on my way to writing something funny, I hit a detour—a detour named Rice, who was in the midst of shredding old files we’ve hung on to for far too long. He came across a piece I’d published in The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution—long ago, back in the days when the paper ran morning and afternoon editions. He suggested I share it in a 2024 blog, as he still found it eerily timely. It’s about FEAR.
Before I share more, let me give you some context: I originally wrote this piece in the year Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson were born, the same year Bill Clinton got sworn into office after his first run. Jurassic Park, The Firm, and The Fugitive sold out at the box office, where tickets ran $4.14 a pop. Only 32 percent of the population owned cell phones then—the kind that had to be flipped open to use.
My kids attended elementary school when I wrote this, one and a half years before the Oklahoma City bombing, five years before the Columbine shooting. It was 1993, eight years before the terror of 9/11, twenty-eight years before the march on the capital of January 6th.
The piece first ran in the Op-Ed section of The Atlanta Journal / The Atlanta Constitution on Wednesday, October 20, 1993. I’d be honored if you’d check it out today.
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LIVING WITH FEAR ~ THE ULTIMATE PARENTAL HORROR
In Atlanta and its suburbs, the fear of random violence striking down children is causing parents to question their own lifestyles and beliefs.
10/20/93 ~ My sister teaches pre-primary “at-risk” kids at an inner-city school. She’s been kicked and hit and called names that would make our mother blush. Their mothers? They’re rarely seen at the school. It’s located across from an alleged crack house, and occasionally sounds of gunshots echo through her classroom. I ask if she’s afraid. She says she doesn’t think about it much.
I think of her when I visit my children’s school. It’s shiny and new, located on a big chunk of suburbia. The kids are clean and well-fed. Parents are present, helping in classrooms, the media center, the school store. Test scores are high. Field trips are plentiful. We parents grouse about fundraisers and requests for money. We do our part, though. No one asks if we’re afraid.
Most of the schoolkids live in our subdivision. It’s a well-groomed “country-club community.” We have homeowners’ guidelines regarding when to put our trash out and providing us two color choices for storm doors. Overall, it’s a nice place to live. We chose it carefully. We felt our kids would be safe here.
Yet fear abounds.
A mother at the bus stop is concerned. A second-grader is harassing her kindergartner. Someone suggests she help her child learn to handle the situation himself. Yet considering recent news stories of violence in schools, she’s uneasy.
A neighbor tells of a visit to the nearby Kroger. She and her nine-year-old witness a man stealing a carton of cigarettes. The child wants to report this to store management. Mother, however, is anxious. The thief has seen them. He may find a way to retaliate.
Statistics tell us that anger and violence are increasing in the suburbs. Theories thrive as to why. Television. Overcrowding. Deteriorating family values.
Some say it’s a mere swing of the pendulum, pointing to eras such as the 1920s, when violence prevailed. They say the apprehension sensed by suburbanites stems partially from the erratic way in which violence strikes. A mass murderer hits a fast-food restaurant. A student is slain in a school cafeteria over a personality clash.
I share the fear of random violence that could touch my children. It’s perhaps the ultimate parental horror. Yet I carry another worry, less hair-raising, certainly, but still strong. It boils down to this: Will I deny my children, and myself, access to experiences where I cannot be in complete control? My answer, like that of most parents, lies one situation at a time.
Recently, after shopping, I found a note on my windshield. It said I was stupid, idiotic, and dangerous. What prompted this? My bumper sticker, supporting one of the candidates from the last presidential election. I found the note irritating and irrational.
I chalked It up to the heat, but my husband voiced concern. Perhaps I should remove the sticker. The next person taking offense might be carrying something more lethal than a pencil.
I considered whether he may be right. Perhaps I should refrain from commentary on my beliefs—all to keep my children “safe.” Yet it occurred to me that then I’d then be bowing to the ghastliest fear of all. The fear of living.
It’s a consternation I’m trying to learn to live without.
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Jan again, in the here and now: Thanks for reading this blast from the past. Not sure about you, but it made me think. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
That said, I usually aim for another kind of FUNNY for my blog posts. I’ll try to get back to the business of being less serious soon. Promise. I’ll try.
(Please enjoy this excerpt from ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME, my humor book-in-progress that chronicles adventures I’ve shared with my other half as we’ve trekked around the 50 states over our 45 years together. This piece appeared previously in a 2018 blog post but has been tweaked, as all writing must be when it resurfaces. Cheers!)
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It was the perfect getaway. Rice and me. A lake house—beautiful, rustic, chic. The water—clear, aqua, expansive. It smelled clean as rain against the fresh cut grass on the sloping lot. A couple icy adult beverages and some down time on the dock were just the ticket.
Spotty cell service? No problem. We were on the water. Lake Martin, Alabama. Ahhh.
I felt alive in a way I hadn’t for ages. Eying the jet skis tied at the dock, I called dibs on the red one. Named her Stella, then bragged to Rice about how the next day, Stella and I would go out and spin double nickels! (That’s code for 55, my pending age at the time, and the speed limit I was ready to push.)
“Why wait?” Rice asked, his grin wide.
The next thing I knew, I was bouncing across the lake, wind and water whipping my hair. It was pure heaven. Finding the marina “beyond the point,” I gassed Stella up for the next day.
Back out on the water, I hugged the shore closer this time. Feeling the waves beneath me, I passed colorful clusters of Adirondack chairs …cozy cottages…flapping flags. Then I passed them again. And again. Meanwhile, black clouds loomed. Lightning flirted, about to flicker.
Rice tells me he grew uneasy as darkness began to set in. Where was I? He drove to the nearby marina and learned that I’d stopped there for gas…over a half hour earlier.
When he returned to the lake house, I was still gone. Under his breath he cursed me for leaving without my phone, despite…well, spotty cell service. Not to be stymied, he called the police to brainstorm how he might track me down. To his dismay, officers came to the house, walked him down to the deck, and peppered him with questions, shining their flashlights into the dark depths around them.
Meanwhile, out on the lake….
Hellz, yes, I was lost. So lost I couldn’t even sniff my way back to the marina.
I tried not to panic. How could I ask for directions when I couldn’t recall the address or the name of the subdivision where we were staying.
Spotting a father and son casting lines from their dock, I inched Stella up, close enough to share my woes. Perhaps they noticed I looked like a deer in headlights when they tried to explain the way back to the marina. Against claps of thunder, they powered up their boat and led me back there themselves.
At the marina, I asked another boater if I could borrow a phone to reach out to Rice.
Alas…I think I’ve mentioned spotty cell service?
Needing to gather my wits, I went inside the marina shop to buy a healthy snack. (Okay, I bought a wine cooler and cigs. Don’t judge.)
“Are you Jan?” the clerk asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”
“An elderly gentleman stopped in an hour or so ago,” he continued. “He was worried about his wife Jan out on the water.”
Oh, my dear, sweet man….
But oof. Elderly gentleman? At the risk of going to hell, I admit, that made me snicker.
I shouldn’t have laughed, though. Because apparently, I think much the way an elderly gentleman does. Trying to figure out ways to connect back to Rice, I thought of the police, too, and asked if someone could give me a ride to the station.
The next thing I knew, I was in a jeep, jostling around back roads of the lake with two young dudes I’d never met before in my life. Had I not seen enough episodes of Law & Order to know better?
Blame it on the wine cooler. Or the optimism of youth—theirs. When these guys insisted they knew the lake and knew we could find the lake house, any danger radar I had failed me.
“Can you remember any landmarks?” the driver asked.
Breeze rustled my hair, helping me think. “A little chapel, maybe?”
He took a few turns, and the other guy asked, “Any road names?”
Suddenly, I envisioned a street sign that Rice and I had passed earlier.
“Peckerwood!” I blurted.
Yes, I was mortified that’s the particular name I remembered. Yet seconds later, we turned onto Peckerwood Road. And, in short time, we did find the lake house.
The jeep engine idled as the front door of the lake house flung open. Rice rushed out onto the driveway, two law officers on his tail. He looked ashen from worry—indeed elderly. For a moment I thought he might chew me out. Instead, he lumbered over and hugged me. Tight.
The officers left PDQ. Almost as quickly as my rescuers, who hightailed it before we could even offer a reward. Maybe because of the open beer containers on the jeep floor.
Minutes later, Rice shook his head while plopping ice cubes into glasses.
“All I could see were the headlines,” he said. “Georgia man arrested after wife disappears on Alabama lake.”
He handed me a glass, and I studied him—flushed, relieved, slap-happy. Both of us were.
“Maybe that was your plan all along?” I ribbed him. “To lose the wife.”
Before he could respond, I had a slightly more serious question. “How could you not remember, after 30-plus years with me, that I get lost everywhere, even in my own driveway?”
To Rice’s credit, he didn’t attempt a comeback.
Sometimes you’ve just gotta shrug, grin, and give in to the crazy.
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There’s a terse but accurate way I sometimes describe what I write about, at least in the nonfiction world:
“A marriage…forty-plus years…fifty states…one wrong turn at a time.”
What can I say? It takes courage to take jabs at my family in print, sharing personal tales from the many ages and stages of doing life together. My loved ones can’t thank me enough for being so brave, but I blame Erma. She led the way, sharing this truth: “Humor writers all have something in common. We share part of our personal and private lives that few other writers share.”
Humorist Erma Bombeck imparted plenty of wisdom like that as she poked fun at life in the suburbs from the 1960s through the 1990s. I can still see my mom, back in the day, coffee cup in hand, chuckling over the latest from Erma’s syndicated column, "At Wit's End." Imagine, daily newspapers—then in their glory days—were delivered by kids on bikes, with a choice of morning or evening distribution. We got the morning edition each day, and I remember snatching The Detroit Free Press from Mom after she’d read it, craving a dose of Erma for myself.
As Erma frequently showed us, “There is a fine line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” That’s one of the things I loved most about her. She reminded us that life combines all the things. We don’t get to pick and choose which emotion to feel at a given time.
When I write, I feel Erma’s influence, regaling readers with memories of family farces through the years. Our experiences aren’t so much unique as universal. I mean, young or old, married or single, who hasn’t experienced a breakdown on the road? Or missed a flight? When those glitches get under your skin, listen to Erma: “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.”
Speaking of the road, in April I hit it once more, this time without my partner in crime. Part of me worried. How would I hold up driving six-plus hours straight, lugging my own bags, and handling all the travel minutia that drives me insane? Then a smile crossed my lips. I could do things my way, deciding on my own when and where to stop for gas or grab a bite to eat.
While I truly believe, “Life is less about the destination than the journey," here’s the thing. I was headed to the 2024 Erma Bombeck Writing Workshop at the University of Dayton. So destination did matter. Big time. And lucky for me, my journey went fine, kind of like this:
“A woman traveling solo…sixty-six years…four states…one CarPlay glitch and rest area snooze at a time.”
The workshop itself—the destination—was ah-maz-ing. Presenters and keynotes included Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen, Beth Lapides, and poet/healer Barbara Fant. Jessica Strawser, Ann Garvin, and Tiffany Yates Martin. Cindy Ratzlaff and Kathy Kinney (Mimi from The Drew Carey Show). Jacquelyn Mitchard and memoirist Wade Rouse, who also writes fiction under his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman…so that she can live on. How I love that man.
For two and a half days, I met new friends, learned boatloads of craft tips, and ate lots of cake. Now back home, like my Erma sisters (and, yes, a few brothers), I vow to cut back on the cake but keep the creativity flowing. Not because I’m the most creative or talented, but because I can.
I have a coffee cup to prove it. It says, “You can write.” ~ Erma Bombeck
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