The Unwelcome Surprise I Learned from Dear Abby

meeting the advice columnist years ago was a tiny lesson of what lay ahead

When I was a teenager I met Pauline Friedman Philips from Sioux City Iowa, or as she was known to the world, Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby."

She and her identical-twin sister Esther “Eppie’ Friedman Lederer — Ann Landers -- were big-deal advice columnists during a chunk of time in the second half of the 20th century -- post World War II, pre-internet -- when people for the most part read newspapers, remained optimistic and conciliatory, and were willing to follow columns from non-therapist women of a certain age.

These two rival siblings offered common sense advice on how to improve lives, with no competition from influencers, pundits, talking heads, blue checks and Cheeto-fingered know-it-alls posting at 3 am.

The 1950s through the 1970s, their peak years, was a time when snark was delivered more in quips than shafts, and ironing seemed more prevalent than irony. Women were restlessly discarding aprons, blacks were marching on Washington, and gays pointed tentative toes out of the closet. We believed more in therapy and redemption back then, and the non-X-rated homilies of moderate Midwestern women who could easily be your aunts were taken to heart by much of the country.

Ann Landers was the homier, more traditional writer; Abby was the wise-cracker, the sharp one. Hers became the most widely syndicated newspaper column in the world, in 1,400 newspapers with 110 million readers.

I knew a few of their secrets: they were Jewish, both had married into money, and Ann resented Abby because she had followed in her advice-giving footsteps a year after she did. On a totally superficial level, Ann had a nose job, but Abby retained her original proboscis, and conscious of the bump on my nose, I admired that.

I was seventeen, editor of my high school paper and a weekly columnist at The Miami Beach Sun, writing about high school life (Hi Beach High!). So when I was told that I was chosen to meet Abby at a press conference I dreamed she could become my forever mentor, available a phone call away.

Abby entered the press room wearing a silk suit in some plummy color, with heavy makeup and nary a hair out of place. (It was the era of hair helmets, teased tresses locked down with hairspray.) She looked more like one of my put-together rich friend's moms than one of the most recognized newspaper women in America.

She spoke for awhile about writing and life, but I was most excited about the question and answer period. We had been asked to jot down questions before she came into the room, and I had carefully crafted mine on the purple, monogrammed notepaper that my Aunt Hilda had gifted me.

At the end of her talk she answered the notes cleverly in her Midwest twang. And my heart leapt when I saw her pick up the purple paper with my deeply felt question.

She read slowly. Except she read something entirely different from what I wrote, something she wanted to be asked so that she could answer what she wanted to say. She read with poise, looking at the note as if she were reading it from my writing.

Such a tiny hurt, yet I was shocked that this little act was from an icon; someone who so often scolded others about lying. For me it was gaslighting, ghosting and fake news, words I did not yet know, 65 years ago.

And nepo-baby stuff came later. Her daughter, Jeanne Philips, who is my age, has been writing an advice column under the name Dear Abby, since her mother’s death in 2013. It is lost in a sea of bloggers and podcasters, and I never read it.

My small memory from 1959 represents a loss of innocence, for sure. But more recently it’s become a reminder of celebrity culture: who we always were, and where we have come. And sadly I wonder in the current world of AI, what it would take to shock me now.

**

Dear Abby, by John Prine, included in the album “Sweet Revenge,” in 1973

Dear Abby, dear Abby
My feet are too long
My hair’s falling out and my rights are all wrong
My friends they all tell me that I’ve no friends at all
Won’t you write me a letter, won’t you give me a call
Signed bewildered

Bewildered, bewildered

You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood

Dear Abby, dear Abby
My fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren’t so expensive I’d wish I were dead
Signed unhappy

Unhappy, unhappy

Dear Abby, dear Abby
You won’t believe this
But my stomach makes noises whenever I kiss
My girlfriend tells me it’s all in my head
But my stomach tells me to write you instead
Signed noise-maker

Noise-maker, noise-maker

Dear Abby, dear Abby
Well I never thought
That me and my girlfriend would ever get caught
We were sitting in the back seat just shooting the breeze
With her hair up in curlers and her pants to her knees
Signed just married

Just married, just married

##