Why not start here, why not start now?

Back in October 2014, I decided that I wanted to write a blog. I jumped in on a free site, played around and soon had my first blog ready to post:

I decided to name my blog “WHYnotFRED?”, and here is the story behind that name.

Back in 1981, I went to work at Willard Psychiatric Center as a Mental Health Therapy Aide (MHTA). I met my future husband who also worked there. We had a client who would repeatedly slap his face as he said “Why Fred? Why do you do the things you do?” and a catch phrase was born.

The title goes beyond simply mocking a tortured soul. My husband took the phrase to heart, and whenever anything went wrong, it was always “Why Fred?” shifting blame to some unknown, faceless force beyond anyone’s control (he also had a “Lenny” in his pocket that got a lot of blame too, but that’s another story). It’s easy to fall into the “Why Fred” trap. It wasn’t my fault, _______ (my parents, my siblings, my temper, the weather….) (fill in the blank) was (were) to blame

The second part of the title is the “not” in the middle of “Why Fred”. This evolved as I contemplated whether to blog or simply journal (which I have done sporadically my whole life), finally, I just said “why not” and jumped in and decided to blog, and the title was born! The “not” also changes the dynamic of the phrase from negative to positive and that is one of the goals of this blog – changing negatives to positives.

One of my inspirations, as I write this blog, is the wonderful Erma Bombeck, who said:  “It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”

Thank you, Erma, for sharing so much of your life with us!