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R.I.P. Dear Abby

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I know I speak for all the Dr. Babooners in the house when I say we’re sad to hear that “Dear Abby” has passed away. It is truly remarkable that she and Ann Landers were twin sisters, and both in the mass advice business. It is a point of honor for Minnesota that she spent her final years here in the Twin Cities area.

This New York Times obituary also makes it clear that Pauline Phillips had a sharp wit, and was a clean, concise writer.

And of course John Prine sums it all up nicely.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

74 thoughts on “R.I.P. Dear Abby”

  1. Landers long ago wrote a response to a distraught new husband who, the very night he was married, was stunned by his wife’s behavior. This one letter stuck in my craw all these years and has been a anecdotal lesson for many troubled couples seeking my help. I call this letter the “Red flannel pajama” syndrome. It seems that the couple had enjoyed a very passionate sex life prior to their wedding night, so imagine the new hubby’s disappointment when his new bride came to be in red flannel pajamas! Now that she was a married woman, many of the accumulated messages from her family or origin “clicked in”, including wearing flannel pajamas to bed. All sorts of behaviors and attitudes absorbed through our parent’s model can suddenly spring up simply from the act of marrying. “Hubby does this; wifey does that” beliefs which have not been part of the relationship prior to marriage emerge devoid of conscious thought. Landers once wrote that life has three rings: engagement ring; wedding ring; and suffer ring.

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  2. Elwood P. Dowd: Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

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  3. Morning all. Years and years ago, when I was still in the bookstore, I hurt my back but wouldn’t take time off because I was sure the store would crumble without me. One morning the older woman who delivered the magazines (lots and lots of magazines) and I were talking about this. She said that I should imagine a bucket of water, then to imagine my fingers in the bucket. When you pull your hand out of the water, there is a disturbance and ripples but pretty quickly the water calms down and you can’t see where your hand was. She said “if you aren’t here, there might be ripples, but eventually the surface will smooth out again” and she was right. This was very good advice and I still remember it today whenever I’m in danger of taking myself too seriously!

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  4. Good morning. My Dad once told me whatever I do in life, I should try do it to the best of my ability. If I became a ditch digger, I should try to be a good one. I think I have heard this advice given by others others, so it wasn’t an entirely original thought from my Dad. You could infer that my Dad thought I might end up with a not very position good position in life where I would have to be satisfied with being good at something that didn’t have much status. What I think he was saying is that I was free to do whatever I wanted to do and the main thing was to make a good effort at whatever I did.

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  6. “What you know how to do is not as important as what you know how to get done.” I passed this on to my daughters and it has served us all well.

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  7. “Never turn down a free lunch.” This one was from my grandmother. It wasn’t so much advice to take all the free stuff you can, but to be gracious and accept gifts when they are offered – don’t say, “I don’t need that,” recognize the gift and the giver and say, “thank you.”

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  8. There must be something wrong with me, for people just don’t give me advice. I can scarcely remember anyone even trying to advise me. If I squint and focus hard, I can just barely remember my mother advising me about romance. “Steve,” she said (she always called me Steve) “you aren’t going to get a girlfriend doing what you are doing. You are being too honest and unpretentious. You won’t ever get a girlfriend if you just act like yourself.”

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      1. About a month after getting that advice, I brought a girl out to meet my parents and have dinner with them. When Kathe had left the room, my mother hissed to me, “Steve, this isn’t going to work out. She’s a sweet girl . . . but she murmurs!” My mother was referring the fact my hearing isn’t superb. In spite of that, Kathe and I got married, making it to the 31-year mark before divorcing. You can decide for yourself if Mom was right that “this isn’t going to work out.”

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    2. sad but look it turned out to be true true true. you have to be a bull sitter to impress those womens and the once you got em you can laugh at how they thought they were gonna change you. ha ha ha
      the only person you can make happy with your being yourself is you and look what sorry company that turns out to be.
      if you want to be truely happy put on the face to be the winner of women and then when it fails you can say it wasnt you who failed but the face you put on. its great you cant lose. i got some great advice regarding marrage. if you feel like getting married you can same a lot of time and energy by going out a finding a woman you hate and giving her a house and all your money. you can save a lot of time and anguish.
      maybe a little cynical today??? a dog is the answer. it almost doesnt mater what the question is.

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  9. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Dear Abby and Ann Landers wielded immense influence over NW Iowa during the 1960’s because they grew up in Sioux City Iowa, 25 miles from my hometown in LeMars, Ia. They were the first women I knew of who escaped the windy Great Plains there. As a child and young teen escaping this geography was high on my list of priorities. Early on, I just hoped to get back to Central Iowa where my dad’s family originated. Then along came Mary Tyler Moore, that great single woman who MOVED TO MINNEAPOLIS ON HER OWN. In 1970 this was revolutionary!

    These three women who lived far from my world had a daily impact on my life. I read Ann Landers, the columnist carried in The Des Moines Register, everyday looking for solid advice.

    At that time most of the advice coming from the adults in my life was woefully insufficient:
    Marry a farmer–married a farmer’s son. Mistake.
    Get married ASAP–did that. Not wise.
    Be a teacher–did not do that. Are you kidding? Be in charge of kids all the time. Did not do that.
    Change your name to your husband’s name–did that. Then I changed it back. Hated it.
    Live in Iowa–started there, got out. Live in the Twin Cities. YIPEE.

    Finally my advice to myself–don’t do anything your mother tells you to do. She thinks she knows how to do life. She doesn’t. Figure it out yourself.

    Thanks Dear Abby, Ann Landers, and Mary Tyler Moore. And to that great funny lady, my favorite of all, Carol Burnett. You never spoke to me, but your examples were priceless.

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    1. My son and I are facing an advice quandary, as daughter received a letter yesterday announcing she has been accepted at Concordia College in Moorhead. She has accepted the offer. Both son and I are Concordia graduates, and daughter resents any advice from me and her brother, so I think our best policy will be to keep our mouths shut and let her find her way on her own (unless, of course, she asks). I have advised her to never skip class, always show up, and don’t get a credit card, but beyond that i think I will be quiet.

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      3. Congrats to Daughter!
        I think you gave her good advice.
        When they don’t take our advice; don’t you professionals call that ‘Independent’??
        I can still hear the teacher hesitate and finally say ‘Well, you won’t have to worry about peer pressure with your child.’

        Took me a few years to learn with Kelly that sometimes I should just be quiet. The tricky part is learning when to give advice and when not. And that is a lesson for all of us.

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    2. Being married to a farmer herself, my mother-in-law told Kelly not to marry a farmer. So when we started dating there was a lot of hand wringing from her Mom. (And Mom-in-law said to daughter “I didn’t send you to Rochester to marry a farmer!” I teased her about that after we were happily married.) They got used to me eventually. 🙂

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      2. i love it. i didnt send you to rochester to marry a farmer. not in the big city world of rochester huh? i was reading about land values the other day. nice nest egg for retiremnet. i always remember the boone and erickson show where one of them said if he won the lottery he would take all the money and put it into a farm and then he would farm until it was all gone. i think things have changes a bit

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  10. Early on in my career as a mother, I got 2 very priceless pieces of advice that I still treasure, as they stand me in good stead.
    1)Never make a promise (and a threat of disciplinary action is a promise for this purpose) to your child you do not plan to carry out.

    2)Remember that your child’s relationship with their father has nothing to do with your relationship with that father.

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    1. somebody told me the kids know later on whats going on and they will remember whan a parent has been jerking them around, it helped a lot when i was biting my lip and reminded me not to push it any further when i wasnt bitng my lip quite hard enough

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  11. Your point number 1 is the first commandment of the dog trainer/handler. “Never give a command you aren’t prepared to enforce.” Don’t ever–and that means ever–tell a dog to “Sit!” unless you are prepared to insist on the dog doing that. This isn’t about being tough; it is all about consistency and “meaning it” when you give a command. I sometimes wish that people wouldn’t try to rear a child until they have shown they know how to train and civilize a dog.

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  13. There have been influenced by a number activists that have pointed out the need for change in society. I have tried to follow their example to a limited extent. I hope to find some better ways that I can do more to help bring about needed changes.

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  14. I think I have mentioned before my father’s sage advice to never marry an oboe player (they have to blow so hard on that small, double reed they are prone to go crazy). My mother never really gave much advice, other than never marry a doctor, since they were never home. She felt I was tempermentally like my father and his family who, in her opinion, you could never advise to do anything since they would never listen.

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      1. There are those who would claim that you could quite safely expand that advice to never marry a musician. Saw a bumper sticker a while ago that said in large letters: MUSICIAN and underneath, in a little smaller letters, it said: No Cash Onboard.

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  15. Morning–

    There’s a lot of good advice out there Baboons.
    I think the one piece that sunk in most for me is ‘Don’t do anything half-assed’.
    Now that doesn’t mean be afraid to try something new that you probably won’t get right the first time, but if you’re gonna do something, as others have already said, do it right.

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  16. Steve said earlier that he doesn’t get much advice. You know, Steve, that all of use are frequently called on to offer advice when we respond to Ask Dr. Babooner. I think that Babooners are not very shy about giving advice. You must have been given advice from time to time on this blog. I’m sure that tim must have offered you some advice and I doubt that he is the only one. If you want more advice, I’m sure you can get lots of it here.

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    1. I am not doing a very good job today of following my own advice on checking my entries. I need to do a better job of proof reading my entries before I enter them. It should be “all of us” not “all of use” in the above entry.

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      1. I did not intend to shame you, Steve. I was only hoping to let you know there plenty of advice to be found here, so don’t worry about not getting much advice. Just ask Dr Babooner.

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        4. my daughters an oboe player. she is rethinking her choice. not an oboe player down deep. she is a singer piano player but band/orchestra called out and now shes ready to say been there done that.

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  17. my dads words come back at this point.
    if you are wondering if its ok… how would you feel about it being printed on the front page of the paper. never do anything you wouldnt want printed on the front page of the paper.
    and
    id rather you were a thief than a liar. a thief can be someone who is talked to with a reasonable amount of respect, maybe admitting he made a mistake. but a liar.. theres no sense talking to em at all. cant trust em any farther than you can throw em

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    1. I had a speaker here the other night talking about online safety and he said basically the same thing. If you wouldn’t print 10,000 copies of this picture and hand them out in the front of the school, then don’t put it online. And the other thing he did; mug shots of online ‘stalkers’ and told them ‘Pick out the creepiest one; if you’re putting this information online, he has your phone number or address’.

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      1. Now that’s a scary thought, but seeing some of the vitriol spewed by so many people online, I don’t doubt that he’s right.

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  19. Saw a book today titled Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, in which the author discusses what foods you can make yourself efficiently and economically, and what you should just leave to corporate America to provide a supply of.

    One thing she mentioned is that she doesn’t recommend making your own Grape Nuts. Apparently there is a recipe you can use to make a crusty material from graham flour, which you then bake and grind into nuggets with a food processor. The author says the noise alone was enough to dissuade her from ever making it a second time.

    Maybe this isn’t the best advice I’ve ever received, but it may be the best I’ve been given today, or at least it’s freshest in my mind at the moment.

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    2. Of all the processed things out there, I think Grape Nuts is about the least offensive. It only has about 5 ingredients, if you don’t count the vitamins they’ve added. I think even Michael Pollan would approve!

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        2. I love the line “It says right here on the box that…” Well if that’s the case, surely it’s true.

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  20. I’ve been the recipient of advice all of my life. Most of it has been unsolicited, and much of it has been unwanted; nevertheless, some of the nuggets of wisdom have served me well. As I look back I find that different pieces of advice have been particularly relevant at different stages of my life. Nowadays the advice that I relish most often is this: Pick your battles.

    My dad was fond of saying that experience is something you get when you don’t listen to other people’s good advice or learn from their mistakes; I think there’s some truth to that.

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  21. It’s interesting – I can’t remember either of my parents verbally giving me advice. If they had, it would have been “go to college” from Dad, and “be different” from my mom. But there was never any question – I was just always going to go to college. Used my degree for 4 years and then never looked back.

    I’ll try to think of others, but here’s one from an old birthday card:
    “If you drink, don’t drive. And if you eat a bowl of chili, don’t play the tuba.”

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    1. One rare piece of advice from my mother, “Learn to touch-type. It will come in handy in college.” (Note that it wasn’t, “it will come in handy at work” – but “in college.” Interesting way to offer advice and finagle in a bit of expectations along with it.)

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  22. Greetings! I don’t remember specific advice from my parents — just general things like “clean your plate, remember all those starving kids in China” or “are you going to do what all the other kids do if they said to jump off a cliff?” My parents were wonderful examples of gracious generosity, tolerance, forgiveness and loving action. Although I do recall my dad saying rather often that “life isn’t a popularity contest”. He was the Director of Maintenance for the Green Bay school system. Unlike many of his colleagues, he thought things out far ahead and made the right decision, not the “popular” decision. He may not have been liked by everybody, but those that knew and worked with him, loved and respected him highly. Dad also knew when to take the hit for the “team.” When unpopular decisions were sent down to the workers, the foremen who oversaw the workers could always just blame “thatgoddamJerryAhl” so the foremen could keep a good relationship with their workers. I had wise parents.

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  26. I came upon a card today with this quote, which I like a lot –

    First say to yourself what you would be,
    then do what you have to do.
    Epictetus

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