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 Mom’s comedic writing legacy and the end of summer drawing near, here is one of her old “No Laugh ’N Matter” summer columns that she syndicated…
As seen in…
“No Laugh ‘N Matter”, by Gloria Pitzer (circa 1970s)
SUMMER CAN BE FUN – BUT NOT FOR MOTHER!
(Written by Gloria Pitzer, in 1976; Published in the Port Huron Times Herald on Aug. 18, 1977)
INASMUCH AS THIS IS an election year, I wish the governor would include me in a kind of relief program to cover mothers of children who are on vacation for the summer. After two weeks of muddy blue jeans and wet towels, my Biz Bag turned in a letter of complaint and left for Yellowstone.
And the refrigerator door has not closed since school did. [What’s more?] “With Avon, you get personal service”, they tell me on TV. Well, since the kids have been home on vacation, my Avon lady asked me to pick up my order – in a locker at the bus terminal.
Of course, summer has not always made me feel like a wart on a hog at bay. In the days of my energy, I could spend a languid afternoon with the entire family at the beach… Frolicking through the sand, [I] could sally forth to the Good Humor truck, with brood in tow, while each one took 20 minutes to decide which flavor they would take.
I know you won’t believe this, but I could then bring myself to embrace a child with all of the tranquilized sweetness of Doris Day and plead: “Please, Michael, tell Mommy where you buried Daddy!” I wouldn’t have minded so much except Daddy was carrying the money for the Good Humor man in his swim trunks pocket.
And it was completely unreasonable to expect the Good Humor man to accept one of the children as collateral – or ALL of them for that matter – until we could uncover Daddy.
For these are the same children who follow you through the souvenir pavilion, commenting candidly: “Look, Mommy, that lady has her wig on crooked.” And “doesn’t that man have funny looking knees?”
At moments like these, I know I was never meant for motherhood. It can be very depressing. But gone are the days when I approached summer vacation with the children as if I had the unfailing cheer of Betty White and Ralph Edwards.
I wasn’t meant to spend my life serving Kool-Aid and Crispy Critters to swarms of children who embark on our porch like occupational troops in the Berlin airlift.
I always found that, just as I was about to walk the gangplank of gloom, a cheerful neighbor (probably the mother of ONE) would enumerate for me all the blessings of having the children at home and prescribe how to enjoy them while they’re small…
Which is exactly like trying to tell me the only way to save money in Las Vegas is to step off the plane and walk directly into the propellers. I mean, how can anyone live with children who think all it takes to open a limeade stand is the garden hose and a sack of lime…
[Children] who now slam the same door all summer that they left open all winter; who, for the entire 87 days of summer [vacation] will ask questions like: “Why can’t we go see FRITZ THE CAT? It’s a cartoon. Isn’t it?” And “Why do you have that twitch in your neck, Mommy?” Or “Can I put a band aid on this worm?”
If a summer relief program is out of the question for mothers like me, I personally feel that the least the governor could do is declare me “A Depressed Area!”
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.]
