Laugh Lines — Volume 1

The story goes something like this: My mom was building a following as a regular humor columnist at the New York Times when Roseanne (yes, that Roseanne) read her work and asked her to join the writing staff of her hit ABC sitcom in Los Angeles. After Roseanne, Newsday offered my mom a weekly column to be featured every Wednesday on page two of the popular Part 2 section.

For the next seven years, Newsday readers were invited in to my mom’s world of family and friends and the lives they lived. Her growing popularity led to several sell-out public speaking engagements which enthralled her readers and gave my mom the joy of hearing, in real time, how her work resonated with them. Everyone went home happy.

These columns of my mom’s Newsday years are the pinnacle of an award-winning career that started decades earlier in the basement of our Rockville Centre home. And, she paid her dues. My mom lined the walls of her home office with more than a hundred rejection letters she saved from article proposals over the years. But my mom laughed it off and kept on typing; the clattering of her Smith Corona typewriter was an ever-present soundtrack of her fierce determination.

When most of her peers started to slow down, my mom hit her stride. The freelance assignments came more frequently: The NY Times, Newsday’s magazine, and New York Magazine, to name a few. But none matched the impact of her award-winning years at Newsday, which included, towards the end of her run, the introduction of my son, Jacob, and my mom reveling in the opportunity to share her earliest stories of being a grandma.

When my mom settled in to a well-deserved retirement and embraced a childhood dream of riding horses, she continued to live life on her own terms, seeing the humor in everyday experiences and reveling in the laughter she heard when she shared her stories. While none of what she told over the last quarter-century appears in print, if you ever had a chance to meet my mom, either in person or on the pages of this collection, you have a pretty good idea how she responded to life and the people she met.

No one was more influential to my mom than my dad, who carries the torch for her to this day. His unwavering devotion to her memory and her legacy is what makes this collection possible. It’s an enduring love story and it’s his gift to her and to all of us.

For me, I miss my mom dearly. While I’m proud of her talent and achievements, it’s our deeply personal connection that I hold closest. She taught me to laugh and inspired my creativity.

And, my mom always had my back.

Barry Klaus
January 2023

Laugh Lines — Volume 3

The story goes something like this: My mom was building a following as a regular humor columnist at the New York Times when Roseanne (yes, that Roseanne) read her work and asked her to join the writing staff of her hit ABC sitcom in Los Angeles. After Roseanne, Newsday offered my mom a weekly column to be featured every Wednesday on page two of the popular Part 2 section.

For the next seven years, Newsday readers were invited in to my mom’s world of family and friends and the lives they lived. Her growing popularity led to several sell-out public speaking engagements which enthralled her readers and gave my mom the joy of hearing, in real time, how her work resonated with them. Everyone went home happy.

These columns of my mom’s Newsday years are the pinnacle of an award-winning career that started decades earlier in the basement of our Rockville Centre home. And, she paid her dues. My mom lined the walls of her home office with more than a hundred rejection letters she saved from article proposals over the years. But my mom laughed it off and kept on typing; the clattering of her Smith Corona typewriter was an ever-present soundtrack of her fierce determination.