Bombeck Wrote of, Lived in Another Era

* About six years ago I had correspondence with the late Erma Bombeck, asking permission to do a reading of her book “Family, the Ties that Bind--and Gag,” as a fund-raiser for my Boy Scout troop at Camarillo State Hospital. Her agent gave us permission, and the reading/dramatization was held at Cameron Center in Thousand Oaks.

In the final passage of her book, Ms. Bombeck made an observation which is worth noting. “Raising a family isn’t something I’d put on a resume. It was hard work but it was steady. Lord, it was steady. But in retrospect, no matter what deeds my life yielded, no matter how many books I had written, I had done something extraordinary with my life as a mother. For three decades, I had been a matriarch of my own family . . . holding them together, waiting for stragglers to grow up, mending verbal fences, adding a little glue for cohesion here, patching a few harsh exchanges there, and daily dispensing a potion of love and loyalty to something bigger than all of us. I hope with all my heart that some day the children will aspire to the dream of a family of their own and a living room that no one ever sat in.”

Ms. Bombeck represented another day and another era. The world has changed so radically since her time. I miss her and the era.

SAMUEL M. ROSEN

Newbury Park