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Dear Abby is Gone – America’s Public Chat Room Lady
Pauline Phillips (Pauline ‘Popo’ Esther Friedman)
…died on January 16, 2013, aged 94
by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor … featuring John Prine and John Hermans
The middle aged Mom wanted a job
I must admit that I had thought she was already dead, because my memories of her would seem to have put her at 120 now. But she hung in there til 94, despite the Alzheimers.
Advice columns had been around for a while before she came of age. Twin sister “Eppie’ had won a competition to replace Ann Landers, and later brought in sister Popo to help carry the huge load of mail coming in. The Chicago paper eventually put the kabosh on that.
But the future Dear Abby would later put the time spent with her sister to good use. When she arrived in her chauffer driven limousine (married well) at the San Francisco Chronical to try out for their retiring advice columnist job, she did 70 letter replies in two hours and was hired on the spot.
The Friedman twins now had two historical oars in the water. Under the pen names of Ann Landers and Dear Abby they became American cultural icons.
I am sharing this with you only because a Berkshire School mate from Sheffield Massachusetts days posted the great John Prine ‘Dear Abby’ song below on my Facebook wall today. The song immortalized her in 1973.
As I watched it the memories came back of the wonderful voyeurism that these advice columns gave us all where we could peek in the windows of other people’s intimate lives and not be arrested.
The greatest gift of all was learning that there were a of lot of people more weird than you were, and being not perfect was quite common.
YouTube - Veterans Today -
– John Prine…1973
Yes, as you might expect, there is a lesson in all of this for us today…America’s melting pot. It starts with two Jewish girls who married well and stepped out onto the yellow brick road. The girls were planning a double wedding ceremony (and later honeymoon) when Effie (Ann Landers) decided to swap her Morton liquor store fiance for the buyer at the wedding dress store. He went on to form Budget-Rent-a-Car.
Her parents never got to see her success
As I always love to say, “You just can’t make this stuff up!”
The Friedman sisters touched a lot of lives, as did their Russian Ellis Island parents, and dad who ended up owning a chain of movie theaters. The girls did not have to work, but wanted the challenge.
We carry on at VT like this…in a way. Our ‘mail’ comes in from a variety of sources, email, phone calls and Skype, with people are either wanting advice or giving it.
Sure, the issues are a lot different from the Friedman sisters’ days. They deal with life, and death, on a larger scale, and the conflict seems never ending.
We all come from a wide variety of backgrounds here, share a lot of the same concerns, and try to learn from each other’s experiences. That’s where the intimacy part kicks in.
What drove the success of the star advice columns was their touching on universal themes. Writing a letter in, and especially getting a reply, gave hope to a lot of people, that others shared their struggles and disappointments.
There is no more of a lonely world than the Intel biz. And for those who have been in it, to be able to be public in their golden years is like having a twin like the Friedman sister’s did. We can share, exchange, train, protect…and try to pass on what we would hope might be some valuable lessons that can save others from the painful trial and error method.
And speaking of reconnections, I had not seen fellow football team mate John Hermans since 1966-’67 until I caught my 45th reunion back home in the Berkshires this Spring, my first trip in 16 years. I shoot a lot of footage and did a lot of reconnecting.
I posted a June 10th, 2012 review of my trip before I came home. It was a bit of a magical mystery tour of sorts… and a mass mailing Dear Abby response.
And oh, I almost forgot, Dear Abby’s audience? …. 100 million.
Despite the Washington Post taking a cheap shot at us on your Sandy Hook coverage, a Lobby organized effort, they had a good obit on our grand dame of confessionals.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=236559
Posted by Jim W. Dean on Jan 19 2013, With 0 Reads, Filed under Editor, Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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It reminds me of delivering the Long Island Newsday AFTER school in the early 80′s….( who would put up with that now? And now grown men deliver 10 times as many papers and that’s their job) …Or my mother telling somebody, ” mind your own business, who are you? Dear Abby?”
I remember the Dear Abby column where teenage girls were organizing a nude slumber party, and it was assured that the father and son would be “away” and not interfere. Denials were issued calling it an urban legend – still, a classic.
‘VT can… try to pass on some valuable lessons to save others from pain.’ I check the vibrant VT website right after checking my local news and weather. I do not always concur with each piece of commentary but I agree with your intent: truth, humor, the facts, and peeling back the layers of the baklava.
Abby was a class act, a professional soul. She could spot a con job a mile away, but her advice was never over the top.
In our late 20th-century national chat, Abby was a steady moderator of life’s drama.
Granddad would pull out Dear Abby’s section of the Tribune paper, unthumbed, and hand it to Grandmother, as they drank their morning coffee. Later in the day, one of the aunties would call Grandmama to touch base on Abby’s latest advice and reflect on who in the community was thought to be living through similar situations.
Abby – you were a blessing for your warm heart and wit. Rest in peace, sweet. Grandmother can ask you questions directly now.
Can you imagine Dear Abby written by George Carlin? Man, that would be a trip!
The only Abby I now relate to is Abbey Road.
Here comes the sun…..
Oh yeah, that would be a hoot. I can’t imagine that Carlin missed this.