- Apr 12, 2024
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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(Please enjoy another 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 all 50 states as a couple. This piece dates back to a day trip we took as young parents to three littles. As the saying goes, the days are long but the years are short. And so, too, were many of our trips back then.)
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~ Spring 1992. House poor but rich with family (translation: we had three kids), our travel adventures kept us close to home. Sometimes on sunny Saturdays, we’d pack up Old Gray, the Ford Taurus wagon that moved us safely from Colorado to Georgia the previous year, and hit the road to explore. That’s how we came to venture to Paradise Garden, home to folk artist Howard Finster and his massive collection of work.
I might not have even heard of the Reverend Howard Finster if not for my sister, Lynne, an art teacher and collector. Finster, whom some call the Andy Warhol of the South, was a former Baptist preacher turned self-taught artist. Before his death in 2001, he produced 46,991 pieces of art, often of angels or pop culture icons or historical figures. “Commissioned by God,” he handwrote a faith-laced message on each piece of art, all individually numbered.
A master of many trades, Finster also created a 2.5-acre art environment as a home to his collection of sculptures and repurposed items. Paradise Garden is located in Summerville, Georgia, north of Rome but south of Cloudland Canyon State Park.
Back in ’92, I owned one of Finster’s painted cats. So why not visit his garden?
Primed for adventure, we headed toward Summerville, hoping that signs would lead the way to Finster’s place. No such luck. And this was back in the days before Google and everyday access to the Internet.
No worries, though. Finster was famous. Certainly, someone could help us along the way.
We stopped at McDonald’s for lunch and to ask for directions. The clerk had not heard of the Reverend Finster.
Rice groused under his breath, something about chasing unicorns, I think.
Undeterred, I asked again, this time at a gas station.
The young attendant pointed. “I think it’s back toward the penitentiary.”
Um…, Lynne hadn’t mentioned a penitentiary. But I pushed aside any anxious thoughts to let my excitement shine through. Rice pursed his lips but agreed to keep going, instructing Alex and me to stay on the lookout for signs to the penitentiary.
The good news? The said penitentiary turned out to be the Chattooga County Jail.
The bad news? We soon determined we were driving in circles—or rather, one big square block along a rural road of small ranch houses dotting large lots. I tried not to pout as Rice pulled into a driveway to turn around.
And now for the worst news. Rice cut the turn short.
Poor Old Gray was now stuck on a jagged old drainpipe connecting the driveway and the ditch. Rice tried to rock the car back and forth, which didn’t help get her unstuck. Nor did it comfort those of us not in the driver’s seat.
Daniel started to cry. (Sorry to narc you out, Dan, but you were little and understandably scared.) I walked the kids across the street to a vast green field, partly as a distraction but also to get them away from their father. To be fair, Rice is not the family cusser. He leaves that to me. At that moment, though, he was letting some mighty colorful language rip.
What happened next unfurled like a dream, except it was real. It happened.
A lady drove up to Old Gray on some fancy tractor-powered lawnmower. Pink slippers peeked out beneath her flowing blue muumuu. Daniel began to quiet, watching his dad and the lady hook Old Gray to the trailer and prepare her for tow.
Success followed. And at the exact instant Old Gray steadied her way back onto the road, the girls squealed, “We found a four-leaf clover!”
Of course, they swore their discovery brought us a change of luck.
Maybe.
But I think perhaps that pink-slippered lady was really an angel. She did get us back on the road and provide some spot-on directions to Paradise Garden, where we spent hours exploring. The place really escapes description except to say that it’s creepy and amazing. And unforgettable.
Almost as unforgettable as our 1992 journey to get there.
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(I hope you 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 all 50 states as a couple. This piece is in memory of Chris Alligood, a friend from our early days, who passed into the light this past year.)
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Rice and I lived outside Boulder, Colorado in the 1980s. Newlyweds, carefree and childless, we scraped together some funds for backpack camping gear. Fun times awaited, right?
Wrong. Our marriage barely survived our first solo overnight trip together. (Another story, another time.)
Suffice it to say, I hesitated when another couple invited us camping a few weeks later.
“C’mon,” Carla urged. “We’ll drive up past Ward and break camp near where we park. No lugging gear along the switchbacks. Just some day hikes into the canyons.”
I softened, happy to hear a plan that allowed for coolers of real food, not freeze-dried astronaut packets. The luxury of cold beer by the fire. An outhouse nearby with a small sink and light. And toilet paper.
As Rice steered the Citation up the road past Ward, the terrain grew rocky.
My breathing quickened. “Let’s turn back,” I said.
“We’ll be fine,” he assured me.
Fine schmine. We’d just spent a chunk of change on new tires, after buying our first house, a cute yellow ranch in a subdivision called Gunbarrel Estates. We weren’t dirt poor, but we weren’t flush. I hated to fret about money, but I did. Mature as I was, I climbed into the back seat, grabbed a beer from the cooler, and rode the rest of the way, sulking on the floor.
Rice was right, though. We made it to our destination just fine, met up with Chris and Carla, pitched our tents and had a relaxing evening.
The real fun began the next morning.
Rice didn’t smile as he greeted me on his return from his morning constitutional. “I hate to tell you this, honey, but your contact case fell down the hole in the john.”
This confused me. I’d tucked my contacts lens case into his Dopp kit.
“Why would you take your Dopp kit into the outhouse?” I tried to keep a steady tone.
“To brush my teeth.”
Ewww. I shivered, trying not to think about it.
He continued. “I went to set the kit on the ledge over the latrine. But apparently, you never zipped the kit closed.” He paused. “And somehow your case fell out of it.”
I inhaled sharply, no longer fixated on the gross factor. My mind’s eye saw dollar bills floating about me like dust in the wind. My gosh-darned hard contact lenses, the ones that made me feel like a nail was gouging my eyeball when a speck of dust got in them…. I purchased those babies once a year, a single pair costing several hundred dollars. They were gone?
Yes, because Rice just dropped them down the crapper. And I’d now have to wear my ugly Coke-bottle lensed glasses for the unforeseeable future.
“Don’t cry, honey.” Rice looked like he might want to cry, too. Or maybe what I saw in his eyes was fear. Fear that I might start to cuss or stomp my feet or call him names, right there in front of Carla and Chris.
For a moment, the crisp mountain air cocooned us in silence.
Then God bless Chris. He punched Rice’s arm in a good-buddy gesture.
“I’ll bet we can get that case back,” he wagered.
Carla and I watched—from a slight distance—as they rigged a fishing line, gobbed it with chewing gum on the end, and cast it down the hole, trying to get my case to stick to it. No dice. Oh, the fishing line worked, but the guys needed something else at the end to grasp the case.
Chris grabbed an empty soda can and cut it open, making a scoop.
And I kid you not. It worked! They retrieved my case and tucked it into a used sandwich bag for safe transport.
Trust me. I boiled the hell out of that case after we got back home. I threw out the pan I boiled it in, too. But darned if those lenses didn’t work just fine until next year’s budget allowed me to buy new ones.
To those who might judge me for wearing those contact lenses again, let me say this. My dignity had already left the building. If I had any left, I wouldn’t be sharing this story.
Then again, as Rice has been known to say on occasion when asked to review my work: “How could you not share such an awesome sh*t show?”
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