By Joe Contreras, Latin Life Denver Media

If the name Erma Bombeck sounds familiar chances are you are part of the”Silent Generation” Born between 1925 and 1945. Or, you’re a baby boomer born between 1946 and 1964. In any case Erma Bombeck’s life and popularity spanned both these generations and beyond. She was the ultimate social influencer of her time. So, her name may very well ring a bell and tickle a dormant funny bone.

Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper columns that poked fun about the thankless job of motherhood and being a stay at home housewife. “It’s the second oldest profession, only, the first one at least got paid.” she often stated. It was also the title of her second book in which she wrote about the frustrations and fulfillments, trials and tribulations of modern motherhood.

The current production ‘At Wit’s End’ currently playing at the Gardner Theatre in the Denver Center for the Performing Art complex thru September 22, 2024 is all about Erma Bombeck’s life as told by Erma Bombeck herself. Or at least the character that plays Bombeck, Pam Sherman, in this one woman show. At Wit’s End is also the name of one of Bombeck’s five other books that have humored readers for decades. Ironically, Pam Sherman is a best selling author and nationally syndicated columnist herself with the ‘Suburban Outlaw’, making her the perfect person to play the part of Erma Bombeck. On stage she proves that to be true. It truly feels like Erma Bombeck herself is talking to you.

Watching actress Pam Sherman as Erma Bombeck on stage performing ‘At Wits End’ is like viewing the life of Erma Bombeck through a magical looking glass where the past and present collide to provide for an informative and entertaining production about Bombeck’s life. Sherman seamlessly traverses the life of Bombeck from her humble beginnings to her overwhelming success then back again all the while speaking to the audience in the present tense. You soon realize, the more things change the more they remain the same. Are we in a timewarp? Those same thankless motherhood chores and frustrations are still as relevant today as they were in the 1950’s when Bombeck wrote the book, ‘At Wit’s End’.

The play takes place entirely in what appears to be Bombeck’s studio apartment There is a bed with a small kitchen area off to the side. The rotary phone that sits on the countertop becomes an important prop as it is through that phone we learn of Bombeck’s coming success. She also has a small portable typewriter where, as a stay at home mom and wife, she pounded out many of her columns. She was probably one of the first “work from home” employees in the country as there was no way she could maintain a household and an office job at the same time.

Sherman as Bombeck is ironing and folding clothes, one of her many chores of the day along with vacuuming as she tells the audience of her humble beginning in Ohio, her parents not graduating high school and her desire to do something with her life. She talks about wanting to go to college and hearing the words she longed to hear, “you can be a writer”. Those words were not easy to come by. After saving money from small writing assignments, obits and such for a local newspaper she paid for literary classes at the Ohio University only to be rejected after one semester. With no money left, she moved on. She worked small writing jobs. One at a department store another a small gig that paid very little. She later entered a catholic college at the University of Dayton where she finally heard those long awaited words and affirmation. Her English professor told her she had great prospects as a writer.

That’s all she needed to hear. She began writing weekly columns that yielded $3 each. She wrote in her small bedroom. The following year the Dayton Journal Herald requested new humorous columns as well, and Bombeck agreed to write two weekly 450-word columns for $50. After three weeks, the articles went into national syndication into 36 major U.S. newspapers, with three weekly columns under the title “At Wit’s End”.

The rest as they say is history. Bombeck wrote over four thousand newspaper columns. By the 1970s, her columns were read semi-weekly by 30 million readers in more than nine hundred newspapers across the United States and Canada. In 1976, McGraw-Hill published Bombeck’s The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, which became a best-seller. In 1978, Bombeck arranged both a million-dollar contract for her fifth book, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? and a 700,000-copy advance for her subsequent book, Aunt Erma’s Cope Book (1979).  If that wasn’t enough Bombeck also wrote for Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Redbook, McCall’s, and Teen magazines.

Bombeck also appeared on TV,  She participated in ABC‘s Good Morning America from 1975 until 1986 and also wrote two sitcoms.

One of her most significant achievements was the work she did in regard to the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1978, Bombeck was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the Presidential Advisory Committee for Women, particularly for the final implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment with the ERA America organization’s support.

Bombeck was strongly criticized for this by conservative figures, and some U.S. stores reacted by removing her books. The more things change, the more they remain the same. More than 50 years later, the Equal Rights Amendment is still not yet a part of the U.S. Constitution. Did I mention that ‘time warp’ thing?

“This is the story behind America’s favorite average housewife who championed the lives of women with an incomparable wit that sprang from the most unexpected place of all — the truth” states a promotional quote for ‘At Wits End’. Through September 22, 2024 at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

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