I watched a biography on Erma Bombeck today on our PBS channel. I loved Erma Bombeck. She could take the irritations and aggravations of everyday life and laugh at them. Erma's children and her husband were interviewed . I wondered what agreement she had with her family was concerning making public their real life. Did Erma have open access to publish everything her children and husband did? She published a column twice a week. She was blogging before we knew what a blog was. One of her children said when you were the one being written about, it was not funny.
In a former life, I was the wife of a military chaplain. I established some ground rules that personal family stories were shared from the chapel pulpit, only with prior approval of those involved. Watching the Erma Bombeck biography reminded of the time preapproval was not gotten before a story was shared.
It was Spring and the former was outside cutting the grass and wacking the weeds. My son was outside with his dad. I was doing some cleaning inside. I will never forget the sound I heard as long as I live. My former made this terrible moan/groan/growl kind of sound. I immediately feared something had happened to my son. I ran to the bedroom window and looked out. The former was standing there holding this tiny baby rabbit who was all cut up. The man was traumatized. My son was traumatized. We were all traumatized.
I did not know the ways of a rabbit, but the mother rabbit plucks fur from her chest and lines an little hutch for her babies to stay. The mother rabbit does not always stay in the the hutch with the babies. Unfortunately, she picked a spot where there was some tall grass near our house and the hutch got weed wacked. The horrible sound the former made was when he realized he had injured all these baby rabbits with the weed eater. One baby survived, and we tried to made amends and take care of it. I remember we were using the plastic recycle bin and it could jump out of the container. I ground up carrots with a micro grater. Someone who lived nearby had raised rescued wildlife and gave us some tips. I feed it with a bottle.
On Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go to church, my daughter came to me and she was holding the baby rabbit. She said, "this guy's dead", and sure enough the baby rabbit had died during the night. The former had already left for chapel and did not know the rabbit had died. I don't remember how he worked this story into his sermon, but he started talking about the baby rabbit we were raising. It was terrible. If he had gotten preapproval from the family, he would have know the rabbit had died. But, he broke the rule and I was really very concerned one of my children would start to cry right in the middle of his sermon. I had an overwhelming urge to throw a hymnal at him. I was not happy.
After the service, in the room where the chapel folks ate cookies and kool-aid, my children let their father know the rabbit was dead. He confessed to all assembled in the cookie and kool-aid room that he had not gotten preapproval to share the story. I have never looked at a rabbit the same way since.
I could use some Erma Bombeck humor today. Humor today is mixed with profanity and overtones that make me more uncomfortable than amused. Thank you Bombeck family for giving us access to your family for all those years.
