Rose Mula

Rose Madeline Mula's Archive of Articles

Rose Mula was an executive assistant, a public relations specialist, and an operations manager for a New England theater chain before discovering a passion for writing. She has written business and trade articles to earn a living, and humor for the fun of it.

Her work has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Yankee, Modern Maturity, The Christian Science Monitor, The Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and more than a hundred other magazines and newspapers. Actually-thousands of newspapers, since one of her essays, The Stranger in My Mirror (originally titled, The Stranger in My House), was reprinted in Ann Landers' nationally syndicated column in 1999, without Rose's byline. Ms. Landers explained that she had received it from her cousin in Phoenix and wanted to share it with her readers even though she didn't know the author. When Rose left a phone message for her, Landers returned the call personally, with gracious compliments and apologies, and she promptly printed an attribution.

Meanwhile, Rose did some sleuthing and found her Stranger running rampant (and nameless) on dozens of websites, all but one of which claimed no prior knowledge of the author but were happy to hear from her and add her name. The exception was the owner of a site who claimed she had had the story for over twenty years. Not true, Rose pointed out, because in the essay she mentioned VCRs, which were very rare back then, and ATMs, which didn't exist for years later.

Rose never was able to identify the original kidnapper who stole her Stranger away. A couple of years before, her hometown newspaper, The Andover Townsman, published it. She assumes that a reader scanned it, without her byline, and started the whole distribution chain by emailing it to a friend who decided to share it with other cyber pals. And the saga continues to this day, the Stranger is still popping up in e-mails across the nation. Rose wishes she herself can achieve the same immortality. Meanwhile, she can reached by e-mail.

Editor's Note: Rose Mula's most recent book is Confessions of a Domestically-Challenged Homemaker & Other Tall Tales, available at Amazon.com and other online booksellers. Grandmother Goose: Rhymes for a Second Childhood is available as an e-book on Amazon.com for the Kindle and at BarnesandNoble.com for the Nook at $2.99; the paperback edition is available for $9.95. Her website is rosemadelinemula.com.

An Immigration Conversation; Lady Liberty is Weeping

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Shortly before my mother died, friends were reminiscing about the happiest days of their lives. When they asked my Mom what hers was, they expected her to cite one of her carefree childhood days in Italy, her wedding day, or the day I graduated from Boston University, which they had often heard her recall with pride. Instead, her immediate response was "The day I became an American citizen." I haven’t been to New York Harbor recently; but if I were to go there today, I think I would find that Lady Liberty is weeping. more »

I Almost Died Last Week; Now I'm Looking Forward to Self-Driving Cars! And What Are the Individual State Requirement for Older Drivers?

Rose Madeline Mula wrote: Shakespeare was wrong, by the way. “To be or not to be?” is not the question — especially for a Catholic, like me, for whom “not to be” — i.e., suicide — is not an option. No, the real question is “To drive or not to drive?” If I can hold out until self-driving cars are readily available, that could solve my problem. Hurry up, technology! more »

Rose Madeline Mula: Color Me Overwhelmed; Every Aspect of Life is Characterized by Multiple Choice, Even Kindergartners Must Choose Which Action Hero or Disney Princess Should Decorate Their Backpacks

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Every aspect of life today is characterized by multiple choice. The Bachelor and Bachelorette must decide which of twenty-five suitors would be the best mate. Kindergartners must choose which action hero or Disney princess should decorate their backpacks. Women have to determine which of dozens of costly wrinkle creams will live up to their hype. A far cry from the only skincare choice I had in my youth — Pond's Cold Cream at 25 cents a jar. Unfortunately, I’m a stress eater; so all of the decision-making I face in my day-to-day life inevitably leads me to ice cream — which only compounds the problem. Do you know how many flavors Baskin-Robbins offers these days?! more »

The Good Old Days ... Not! (Memoirs of a Former Secretary)

Rose Madeline Mula writes: The mimeograph machine was another diabolic duplicating device. If we didn't want to get purple ink all over ourselves, instead of using a ditto master, we typed a mimeograph stencil. This was a blue sheet over a stiff backing on which we typed without a typewriter ribbon so that the keys cut through the stencil. If we made a mistake, we coated it with a special white glop, waited for it to dry, and then tried to cut the correct symbols through the glop. Good luck. When the typing and glopping were finished, we wrapped the stencil around the black-ink coated drum of the mimeograph machine and cranked out the required copies. The big advantage of this method was no purple-stained clothes and body parts. We did, however, wind up with black-stained clothes and body parts. more »