INTRODUCTION
Mom was very creative and funny. She designed a few different satirical editorial columns in the 1960s and 1970s that were geared toward working homemakers like herself (or those who just wanted 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 (with an endless source of material) about which to write and it was so relatable to so many of her readers.
She also created paralleling cartoon panels, which she called “Full House – as Kept by Gloria Pitzer”; all of which likewise satirically depicted her life in the 1960s and 1970s, 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’ve shared several of her editorials within my blog posts, “Mondays & Memories Of My Mom”, since they began in September 2018 (and you’ll see them again, here). I’m dedicating this tab to these monthly posts of Mom’s ageless, 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 Mom’s comedic writing legacy, here is one of her old “No Laugh ’N Matter” columns that she syndicated in the 1970s…
“NO LAUGH ‘N MATTER”, by Gloria Pitzer (circa mid-1970s)
FOOD COSTS ARE KILLING US!
FOOD PRICES AREN’T really high! If you don’t believe me – ask Howard Hughes! I have a feeling he’s about one of six people who would not agree with me when I say it would be cheaper to eat money than meat!
If every complaint made in the supermarket aisles was put into writing and addressed to Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C., perhaps the petition of public persuasion would bring relief.
We can only hope that Mrs. Ford has been doing her own food shopping over the last six months, because, until you’ve witnessed the continuously rising costs at the supermarket, you cannot appreciate the need to have somebody do something about it.
Like the weather, talk is cheap. It doesn’t cost anything to complain to a fellow food shopper. But life is hectic and, today, people don’t take the time to do what needs to be done until we all reach a point of extreme disgust and financial exhaustion that we can’t put up with any longer.
In fact, I’ll tell you how hectic life has become. They’re bringing out a new toothpaste with hidden, invisible food particles already in it – for people who don’t have time to eat between brushings. It’s as if everybody’s shouting at once: ‘They said it couldn’t be done.’ So we don’t even bother trying to clamp down with our objections.
If there are any optimists left among us, it’s probably the guy who thinks bread will cost $1 a loaf by 1975. Having the food industry continue to financially badger the American public with spiraling prices (correction: not spiraling – going straight up), is like sending somebody a postcard with the message: ‘Enclosed, please find check!’
The last time I bought a candy bar, I noticed it was 25% smaller than what they put out a month ago and costs 25% more. Nobody would mind this kind of change if we could all be like candy bars – putting out 25% less of ourselves, in the labor force, and collecting 25% more pay.
Then things would be equal. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with price controls that faith, hope, and a little clarity couldn’t cure. The same people who criticize price controls are the ones who get upset when government machines won’t take their credit cards.
But then our whole financial set up in this country is cockeyed! If we make less then X-amount of money a year, the government rewards us with a subsidy – and if we make MORE than X-amount, the government penalizes us with a tax!
When the wealthy start to complain about the price of sugar, bread, and milk and resort to fruit-flavored water for their children, then maybe they’ll be hearing voices in Washington – the right voices, that is, of complaining consumers.
The only trouble is, we all keep waiting for somebody else to initiate some action, by hoping that our own personal ‘spokesman’ will be in the right place at the right time. We’re our own best spokesman – considering that we, the consumers, are already in the right place at the right time every time we set foot down a supermarket aisle.
We can gasp at the canned goods, flinch at the price of meat, cringe at the increase in dairy costs, and go home saddened because we’re borrowing from next week’s paycheck to pay for last week’s groceries.
Well, you know how they’re always saying: ‘Tell it to your Congressman!’ I ran into him last week at the grocery store – and I DID tell him. You know what he told me? ‘Put it in writing!’ Okay, everybody, race you to the mailbox!
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.]
