Poet - Erma Bombeck - 'If I had My Life to Live Over'

Poet - Erma Bombeck - 'If I had My Life to Live Over'

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER...

by Erma Bombeck

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less when reading - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance

in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said,

"Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you’s"… more "I'm sorrys"... but mostly, given

another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it...

live it...and never give it back.

• In memory of Erma Bombeck

*****

Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996), born Erma Fiste, was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life humorously from the mid-1960s until the late '90s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became best sellers.

Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns chronicling the ordinary life of a midwestern suburban housewife with broad, and sometimes eloquent, humor.

Erma Bombeck was born in Dayton, Ohio. She grew up in a working-class family. Her father, Cassius Fiste, was the city crane operator; her mother's name was also Erma.

In 1942, Bombeck began to work at the Dayton Herald as a copygirl, sharing her full-time assignment with a girlfriend. She completed high school in 1944. While in college she began to write for the university publication, The Exponent and she graduated in 1949, with a degree in English.

In 1949, Bombeck also converted to Catholicism, from the United Brethren church, and married Bill Bombeck, She remained active in the Church the rest of her life.

Doctors told the Bombecks that having a child was improbable, so they adopted a girl, Betsy, in 1953. Erma decided to become a full-time housewife, and relinquished her career as a journalist. Despite the former difficult diagnoses, Erma Bombeck gave birth to a son, Andrew in 1955 and she stayed home for the next ten years.

She continued writing and by 1969, 500 U.S. newspapers featured her "At Wit's End" columns, and she was also writing for Good Housekeeping Magazine, Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Redbook, McCall's, and Teen magazine. Bombeck and her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to a lavish hacienda on a hilltop in Paradise Valley.

By 1985, Erma Bombeck's three weekly columns were being published by 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada and were read by over 30 million readers, She was also making twice-weekly 'Good Morning America' appearances. Bombeck belonged to the American Academy of Humor Columnists.

Erma Bombeck was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. In 1996, she was brought to a San Francisco hospital for a kidney transplant, which was performed on April 3. However, she suffered complications following the procedure, and died on April 22.

Her remains are interred in the Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio, under a large rock from the Phoenix desert.

*****

I read Erma’s columns during the years of raising my children. She always gave a very amusing slant to typical everyday family situations and I could relate to so many of her stories. She had such a great sense of humor that she was able to capture with words.

peacesojourner

History - African American - Today is Toni Morrison's Birthday

Today is Toni Morrison's 79th Birthday

Writer and editor. Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. Considered one of the best contemporary novelists, she graduated from Howard University in 1953 and continued her education at Cornell University where she received a master of fine arts degree in 1955. After graduating from Cornell, she taught English at Texas Southern University and at Howard University.

Ms. Morrison left academia in 1965, taking a job as a senior editor for Random House in New York City. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970 and told the story of a young African-American girl who believes her incredibly difficult life would be better if only she had blue eyes. She continued to explore the African-American experience in its many forms and time periods in such works as Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), and Beloved (1987), which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Morrison developed a strong following among both readers and critics whom fell for her lyrical style, sharp observations, and vibrant storytelling.

Morrison became a professor at Princeton University in 1989 and continued to produce great works. In recognition of her contributions to her field, she received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first African American to be selected for the award. The next year, her novel Jazz was published, and she established a special workshop for writers and performers known as the Princeton Atelier.

Along with her novels Paradise (1998) and Love (2003), Morrison wrote several children's books, including The Big Box (1999), The Book of Mean People (2002), and The Ant or the Grasshopper? (2003), with her son Slade.

In 2006, she announced she was retiring from her post at Princeton. That year, the New York Times Book Review named Beloved the best novel of the past 25 years.

Married to Harold Morrison from 1958 to 1964, Morrison has two sons—Harold and Slade. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and Upstate New York.

*****

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. –Toni Morrison

Happy Birthday to Toni Morrison who has given many hours of enjoyment to those of us who have read her books.

History - African American - Today is Alice Walker's Birthday

Today is Alice Walker's 66th Birthday

Alice Walker Biography - in full Alice Malsenior Walker (1944–)

Novelist, poet, feminist. Born Alice Malsenior Walker on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Alice Walker is one of the most admired African American writers working today. She studied at Spelman College, Atlanta, and Sarah Lawrence College, New York, and then worked as a social worker, teacher, and lecturer. She took a brief sabbatical from her writing in the 1960s to live in Mississippi and work in the civil rights movement, returning to New York to write for Ms. magazine.

An accomplished poet, Alice Walker is best known for her novels, most notably 1982's The Color Purple for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book was later made into a successful film, which tells the story of two black sisters in the segregated world of the Deep South. Later novels include The Temple of My Familiar, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and By the Light of My Father's Smile. She has also written volumes of short stories and essays, including You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down and In Search of My Mother's Garden.

Recently, Alice Walker published a collection of essays entitled We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light in a Time of Darkness (2006). She also wrote the well-received picture book, There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me (2006). Her most recent novel was 2004's Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart.

Alice Walker was married to activist Mel Leventhal from 1967 to 1976; the couple had one daughter, Rebecca Walker.

RELATED WORKS

Novels

1970 The Third Life of Grange Copeland

1977 Meridian

1982 The Color Purple

1989 The Temple of My Familiar

1992 Possessing the Secret of Joy

1996 Banned

1998 By the Light of My FatherO's Smile

2004 Now is the Time to Open Your Heart

Poetry

1960 The Location of Things

1968 Once: Poems

1973 Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems

1979 Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning

1984 Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful: Poems

1991 Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems

2003 Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth

2003 A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems And Drawings

2005 Collected Poems

Stories

1973 In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women

1981 You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down

Non-fiction

1983 In Search of My Mother's Garden: Womanist Prose

1993 Warrior Marks

1996 The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult

1997 Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism

1997 Go Girl!: The Black Woman's Book of Travel And Adventure

1999 Pema Chodron and Alice Walker in Conversation

2001 Sent By Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center And Pentagon

2006 We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness (Meditation)

Last month I watched a documentary on TV where Ms. Walker was being interviewed in her home.

I was spellbound as I listened to her philosophy of life.

If anyone knows the name of that interview please let me know so that I can pass it along to others. She is indeed one of the most interesting people that I know of and certainly a person who I admire.

Happy Birthday Ms. Alice Walker