Erma Bombeck’s “At Wit’s End” in Cape May

I love Erma Bombeck and read everything by her growing up. I used to say I wanted to be just like her, something my writing teachers discouraged, saying her writing was shallow. Not literary and didn’t I want to be respected?

Don’t care. I still love her. So I was happy to write this.

Here’s the lede:

For more than 30 years, humorist Erma Bombeck used her experiences as a wife, mother and homemaker to craft best-selling books and several thousand newspaper and magazine columns. But her legacy is much more than one-liners: Bombeck was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and not afraid to stand up and speak out.

“Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End,” at Cape May Stage May 24 – June 22, offers a more complete portrait at the writer who died in 1996 at age 69. Actress Kate McCauley Hathaway stars in the one-woman show and hopes to introduce Bombeck to younger audiences while paying homage to the wit that was part of her own childhood.