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 book sellers. 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 books of humorous essays, The Beautiful People and Other Aggravations, and If These Are Laugh Lines, I'm Having Way Too Much Fun can also be ordered at Amazon.com or through Pelican Publishing (800-843-1724). Her website is rosemadelinemula.com.

Life After the Dinosaurs: ENIAC Couldn't Telephone, Skype, or Text, Search for Pokemon, Make Travel Reservations or Warn of Tornadoes

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Today's kids don't have to struggle with typewriter ribbons, correction tape, Wite-Out, carbon paper, mimeograph stencils, Ditto machines, and a myriad other medieval instruments of torture that plagued secretaries of old. What's a secretary? It was a woman (never a man) who munched a brown-bag sandwich at her desk as she typed, while her boss, who made more than ten times her salary, was out enjoying expense-paid 'business' lunches and martinis with other bosses. If I sound bitter, it's because I am. I was born way too soon I envy all who weren't. more »

Communication Gap: I'm Not Ready To Get Off the Stage

Rose Madeline Mula writes: In the fantasy world of my mind, I can still climb endless flights of stairs without losing my breath; I can walk — even jog — for miles; I can get down on the floor and, even more important, get up again. I can get in and out of a car without having passers-by rushing over to help. When I go to an airport, attendants don't run to greet me at the door proffering wheel chairs. Old geezers with walkers don't offer me their seats on crowded busses. more »

It's Time to Hang Up My Traveling Shoes

Rose Madeline Mula writes: I love to travel. Not any more. Not since my trip last winter to Florida where I fled to escape the Northeast blasts. At the beach, I found I could no longer sit in a sand chair. I could sit in it but no way could I get up out of it. I had to depend on strangers to hoist me up before the tide came in. If I pulled out my cell phone invariably it would attract the attention of someone nearby who would gush patronizingly, "Look at you!" as if I had just transformed water into wine. Apparently it's equally miraculous that someone of my advanced years has enough live brain cells to have mastered a basic electronic device. more »

Regrets, I've Had a Few

Rose Madeline Mula writes: At the risk of sounding immodest, I did become a fantastic secretary, but that turned out to be one of my biggest regrets. We secretaries didn't have glass ceilings. Ours were reinforced steel. In those early days, the only women I knew who managed to get ahead were those who were smart enough to claim they didn't know how to type. It took me a couple of more decades to live down my 100-words-per-minute skill, and I landed a job as Operations Manager of a chain of New England dinner theaters. more »