INTRODUCTION
In the 1960s and 1970s, Mom designed a few different editorial columns, satirically geared toward working homemakers like herself (or those who just want to laugh at life), mailing out samples to over 300 newspapers.
Within a year, she was steadily writing two different columns (“No Laughing Matter” and “Minding the Hearth”) for 60 regular papers. Mom found her life, as a struggling, working homemaker, wife, and mother of five, to be the best subject about which to write and it was so relatable to so many of her readers.
Mom also created paralleling cartoon panels, which she called “Full House – as Kept by Gloria Pitzer”; all of which likewise depicted her life in the 1960s and1970s, during the Women’s Liberation movement.
The internet is an awesome source of information and archives for finding some of Mom’s old “No Laughing Matter” columns; as well as her old cookbooks that have been out of print for years but can still be found on Amazon and eBay (sometimes for ridiculous amounts because they’re no longer in print).
I’m dedicating this tab and these monthly posts to her ageless, satirical, creative writing talents. I have a couple of binders full of her humorous commentaries and I look forward to re-sharing them all, here. In honor of October, Halloween Safety Month, and Mom’s comedic writing legacy, here is one of her old “No Laugh ’N Matter” columns that she syndicated…
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES
As seen in…
No Laughing Matter, a syndicated column by Gloria Pitzer (no date on reprint)
[Originally printed in her syndicated Food For Thought column, circa 1969]
HALLOWEEN TRICK IS FINDING WEIRD ATTIRE
EVERY YEAR, I KEEP hoping somebody will do something about Halloween costumes. Shopping for really weird costumes poses a problem when we are still offered the same monotonous choices we were given back in the Neo-Saddle-Shoe days of [my] own tarnished youth.
Somehow, I’ll locate those boxes in the attic that contain all the rain-soaked, Donald Duck outfits, Bozo suits, Frankenstein masks with missing elastics, and the gypsy attire. And if I do, I’ll be able to clothe an entire hippie colony for at least a year.
Somewhere, I also have a box of threadbare pillowcases stained with licorice and lipstick that didn’t wash out. However, if I’m lucky, I won’t have to give our 12-year-old a bag this year because he says he’s “going to eat the stuff right on the spot!”
And, if it’s an especially good year, he promises to save me all the chocolate Easter bunnies he gets. Mike told me not to worry about getting his sister a mask, “since Debi doesn’t need one!”
I’ve decided their father can take them trick-or-treating this year! I’m still quite hurt from the tactless comment made by the neighbor at the end of the block, who offered me the candy corn last year because he thought I had a sensational costume. Trouble was, I wasn’t wearing one! I looked like an accident, going somewhere to happen!
“That’s my mom!” Mike told the man. “But if you think she looks scary now, you should see her in the morning!”
That kid is going to get underwear for Christmas! In fact, a few more comments like that may turn me against honesty, altogether.
Actually, some of the costumes the kids have dreamed up, themselves, have shown more ingenuity than the manufacturers who produce kids’ costumes that are somehow programmed to self-destruct before a mother can find a safety pin to fasten the neck opening.
You’d think, for $2.98, they would at least put gripper snaps or zippers or supply you with their safety pins on those skimpy outfits. Do they care that a mother cannot locate a safety pin when she needs one, without summoning the aid of Mannix and Mr. Keane, Tracer of Lost Persons?
Trying to find safety pins for Halloween costumes in October is as likely as finding D batteries for Christmas toys in December!
Naturally, all my good suggestions went out the window, so the kids tried to put their own costumes together and I’m supposed to act surprised when they come calling at our house Halloween night. Now, maybe I won’t be able to recognize my offspring, but one thing’s for sure… I can certainly identify my sheets!
Or, if you’ll excuse the pun – they don’t have a ghost of a chance of fooling me!
LAST THOUGHTS…
For questions or comments, you can email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. I’m also on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
[NOTE: As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share this.]
