21st Century: Query 118 (Erma Bombeck)
“The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.” ~ Erma Bombeck, humorist , was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960’s until the late 1990’s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a Midwestern suburban housewife. By the 1970’s, her columns were read twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. As a humorist, Erma Bombeck was considered a “housewife” comic, often poking fun at suburban home life, including her own. In the above quote, what is she saying about middle age, exercise, and sexuality? How does she use humor to comment on serious issues facing the average stay-at-home mom of the mid-1960’s to the early 1990’s? How did the c...