Northwoods asks me: "Do you ever listen to Dr. Laura? I think you and she would see eye to eye on a lot of things."
Roughly sixteen years ago RLB and I lived in a cockroach infested apartment with our infant son. We had hand me down furniture, a cat carrier as an end table, and a folding table and chairs in our dining room. Our vehicle was an upgrade from Louis, our $500 Toyota truck. My grandfather stopped driving and gave us his old Plymouth Reliant.
RLB was working in sales by day and waiting tables at night. The sales job was straight commission. You could say RLB was apprenticing as a salesman. Our annual income for two years in a row was $8000.
The Reliant only had an A.M. radio and RLB had a lot of driving to do everyday. His favorite channel quickly became WTMJ 620 out of Milwaukee. I remember the day as if it were yesterday, RLB came home and found me in the baby's room and said, "You've got to hear this radio program I've been listening to!" He proceeded to tell me all about every call that came in to the Dr. Laura show that he heard that day. He told me Dr. Laura's responses and assured me I would love to listen to this program. He was right.
I was 21 years old. I'd been married for less than two years, had a baby boy I hadn't a clue what to do with, and postpartum depression that compounded the emotional baggage and instability I had brought with me into marriage from ten years worth of horrible decisions and circumstances.
It's hard for me to even express what an understatement it would be to simply say Dr. Laura's radio show influenced me. She was the first woman I had ever heard give advice that didn't pander to individual's feelings. I discuss how I process correction and truth here. Her words were precisely what I needed to hear at the time. I credit her for helping me come to a peace in my heart that all will be okay. That we were making the right decisions (having me be the keeper of the home), and our marriage will be strengthened by these decisions, especially since we were making them at such a hard time.
It has been years since I've heard her program or read her books. I have found other sources of inspiration and wisdom that speak to me where I am in life currently and are thus even more hard hitting and thought provoking for me. But Dr. Laura was the first voice I heard when I began my journey out of The Cave.
Thanks for sharing. Though I may not always agree with Dr Laura, I love her "pull no punches" style and respect her opinion. I, too, recall "discovering" her show in a POS car with an AM radio. She's on Sirius/XM now.
ReplyDeleteI listened to her for years, until she went off the air and went to satellite. I have been known to give a copy of her book The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands to wives thinking about divorce. One of my favorite things I've heard her say is that while she doesn't endorse arranged marriage she doesn't see how some women's parents could do a worse job choosing a husband than the women choose for themselves.
ReplyDelete