THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604240190
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
On a cool, clear spring morning some 25 years ago, I sat in front of my 1947 Smith-Corona portable and looked disconsolately at the typed page in front of me.
A mistake - a big mistake - looked back.
The page was number 2 of the 4 that made up the final draft of the first piece of writing I ever did for a national publication. The mistake was at the top of the page.
And at the bottom of the previous page, as well.
No amount of correction tape would make the mistake disappear from the two sheets of 20-pound, high rag content bond paper that was the standard for manuscripts in those days.
I was working that morning in the lower-level family room of a house that sat on the top of a hill in one of those ``barely outside the Beltway'' developments in Fairfax County.
Charlie the Lhasa's predecessor, a beagle named Ruff, snored loudly on the sofa beside me. Somewhere back in the unfinished part of the basement, the washer clunked and the dryer whirred as they made their way through the day's laundry for our family of five humans, one usually muddy dog and the messiest hamster on the face of the earth.
Reluctantly, I started to pull the page from the typewriter so that I could begin typing the draft over again.
But before I did, I typed at the bottom of the page three times in capital letters: ``I AM A GRADUATE OF THE ERMA BOMBECK LAUNDRY ROOM SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM.''
Somehow the words made me feel better. They made me realize that I wasn't the only woman on earth who slaved over a typewriter, a washer and a dryer simultaneously.
Erma had the knack of making you realize that she understood how you felt even if she'd never met you.
I knew for sure that morning that she, too, had experienced such a moment; that she, too, had ripped endless flawed pages from her typewriter; that she, too, had made many trips between her desk and the laundry room as she simultaneously searched for the right word and tested the towels for dryness.
And that she, too, had found something slightly off kilter to laugh about in what could be the dreariest of processes.
All of us who were Erma's disciples (and who, of my generation was not?) owe her a huge debt of gratitude.
It was she who made us realize it was OK to have kitchen floors where small household pets became trapped in yesterday's Kool-Aid spill. It was she who explained that socks have a sex life and reproduce - rather than disappear - in washing machines.
And it was she who reassured us that kids with dirty faces and rings around their collars, their necks and various other clothing and body parts could, indeed, grow up to be productive citizens.
What she had to say made a lot of sense, even as it left us chuckling.
When she passed away earlier this week, she left a certain sadness, a certain void behind her.
For about half a minute.
Charles Gibson, who had worked with Erma on ``Good Morning America'' was best at putting the world's loss in perspective.
``For about 30 seconds after we heard the news,'' he said, ``we were sad. Then the smiles started as everyone began telling their favorite Erma story.''
The truth is, Erma will never be very far away. What she wrote and what she said is universal.
It is part of us, our world and our culture.
She, more than anyone else, taught us to laugh at pomposity, laugh at our mistakes and laugh at ourselves.
Her humor was good, genuine and kind. It was a gentle poke at ourselves and our conventions, not a cruel steel-tipped barb aimed at others and society.
It provoked us to laughter and reflection, not to anger and reaction.
Will she be missed?
Absolutely.
Will she be forgotten?
Absolutely not.
So long as babies blow bubbles in spinach, weeds take over flower beds, teenagers spend hours on telephones and husbands attempt to load dishwashers, there will be somebody who will remember an Erma column that dealt with the topic.
And so long as there are any women pounding out stories within earshot of a washing machine, her closest disciples - my fellow graduates of the Erma Bombeck Laundry Room School of Journalism - will see to it that those memories are kept alive. by CNB