Dear Ann Landers...
Remember that famous pen name and advice column? It was an era where there was no internet. You could not get an answer at the click of a button. No Google, no Yahoo search engine or Bing. Just a good old newspaper column that you wrote into and waited for an answer. Seems like ancient times, doesn't it? Of course who could forget that famous Brady Bunch episode "Dear Libby?" Marcia reads the column, thinks it is about her family...Dear Libby comes to visit...yeah. Amazingly we still have advice columns. Dear Abby, Hints from Heloise, Washington's Post Carolyn Hax and Judith Martins ever popular Miss Manners. However, does anyone still subscribe to an actual in print newspaper anymore?
As a child of a newspaper father, not a writer but a photographer. The newspaper was a must in our home. We delivered our neighborhood's papers (all four of us at some point in our growing years). My brother holding the torch the longest, I would say. Ten cent tips for delivering in rain, wind, sleet and snow. Not to driveways, but walking sidewalks and placing the newspaper in mailboxes, on porches and inside screen doors. It was a job that was prideful, with little pay. It was Andy Lloyd's kids doing the job, If we did not do it "right" the "Times Leader" heard about it, trust me! As I got older I still loved getting my news from that paper source. Subscribing to "The Dispatch." At one time I could not start my day until that paper was read. As the years passed and the internet became more prevalent and my newspaper delivery became later and later. My start of the day became more electronically based. Eventually that led to the canceling of the once beloved newspaper. Was I really going to miss anything? Sigh...
I hadn't thought much of the newspaper. Until recently while I was rummaging through a heap of old pictures at my Dad's house. I resurrected this old newspaper article. This article hung on our fridge for many years while growing up. It brought back the memory of the newspaper. The simpler life of the seventies and eighties. The grounding of a loving family. The parents who strived to show love and compassion to four kids and pass along a legacy of family values to each and everyone of us. I would say, with great confidence, that I do believe they succeeded. That newspaper was a link to the past. I don't miss the walk to the end of the driveway to get that plastic wrapped newspaper at the crack of dawn. What I do miss are the conversations over that newspaper. The "talk" that the advice columns created between my mom and I. The laughs heard coming from a Backward glance picture. The endearment of seeing children and grandchildren's pictures in a Birthday announcement, and in our case many front page pictures. The sadness of reading an obituary of someone you may have known. Never thinking that there would be a silence to all that someday
I lost my mom 21 years ago to Leukemia. She possessed something greater than life itself. She had hope, faith and a great love for all. She was a strong woman and remains a huge influence in my life and in my heart. In times of doubt I ask myself WWPD-"What would Phyllis do"? I know she would be proud of the legacy that she and my dad created. I celebrate her life and strive everyday to see it the way she did. It was a gift. A gift from God that was treasured and she was blessed.
So the "meanest mom in the world" was never really mean at all. She was simply the most treasured woman I have ever known...
Proverbs 31: 25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;she can laugh at the days to come. 26 She speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue. 27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
