The words “Fan Mail” were printed in my mother’s neat hand on the top of a shoebox I found while I was cleaning out my office closet for the remediation team after the Eaton fires.
Many years ago, I wrote a column for the Pasadena Star News called “On Single Parents.”
My mother was very excited about this column because I wrote every word on the portable typewriter she gave me for my 16th birthday. It was her proof positive that nourishing my passion for writing was the right move.
She was visiting me from Virginia at the time the columns previewed and took great pride in clipping them each week and organizing them into files. The Star News forwarded me mail about the column and Mom and I enjoyed reading them together. I did not know that she had kept them in shoeboxes until I found this one.
In fact, I wasn’t sure they even existed after all these years.
Reading through them, I discovered that my mother had created her own method of syndicating my column. Congratulation notes from all over the country came from aunts, uncles, cousins and her friends, some of whom I had never met. I applaud my mother, who had very traditional standards, for doing her own publicity for me in a time when a divorced daughter with a child might not have been something to brag about.
What a gift to find this “fan mail” now on the 16th anniversary of writing this column. Mom had no qualms about my Senior Moments column. While not everyone would be a single parent, everyone would get old. She was all-in with her publicity once again. Ask anyone who lived in her retirement home.
I no longer write my column on what I came to think of as mom’s typewriter, but Maggie sits beside my desktop computer and inspires me every week.
She also talks to me, “What do you mean you can’t decide what to write about? What would your Mother say?” All it takes is a tap or two of my fingers on Maggie’s taut keys and I’m back on track.
I couldn’t ask for a sweeter 16 years than the last have been interacting with my readers each week. If you have something you want to tell me, I’m starting a new shoebox.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com