I watched a group of youngsters in a classroom and realized there were two different groups of kids.

The majority were working, pencils flying across the paper as they sat with their feet tucked underneath them.

A small group of youngsters were bouncing around the room, touching all the toys, talking loudly, and the teacher had to constantly redirect those young ones.

What struck me was that the loud and demanding minority got all the attention. The others had obviously learned early on that they were pretty much on their own.

They turn their homework in on time, figure out what they need to do and work until they finish their assignment.

But the rambunctious ones got all the attention. Their actions demanded the teacher’s almost undivided attention.

There was no way this teacher could let them destroy things in the classroom, annoy the other children or not answer their constant pleas to get water or go to the bathroom.

The ones who quietly did what they were supposed to do are the “under-the-radar” students. They seldom cause any ruckus in class and follow the rules posted on the bulletin board.

It’s not just in a classroom where the under-the-radar people carry out their daily lives.

We see them in offices. They’re the employees who come to work a little early and leave a little late. They don’t take advantage of coffee breaks, and they quietly and efficiently do what they’re supposed to do.

On the flip side, there’s the show offs – they talk loudly, pop rubber bands and demand an audience for everything they’re doing, from shredding paper to trying to decide what path to take to solve a problem. They demand others’ time and attention and they usually get it.

That observation doesn’t stop there. Think about your commute to and from work. We don’t remember the drivers who stop at red lights, yield at intersections and play music so only they can hear it.

Instead, we remember the jerk that cut us off when it was time to merge, the young punk with her music playing at ear-splitting volume with all the windows down and the slow-poke that jams up traffic for a mile behind them.

We’re not thankful or grateful for the majority of people who do what they’re supposed to do. Instead we concentrate on the rude, inconsiderate people, and they’re actually in the minority.

If you have more than one child, you understand this phenomenon. One child is perfectly happy no matter what breakfast you put down in front of them.

They’re content with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and chicken tenders and macaroni and cheese for dinner suits them just fine. We seldom stop and acknowledge that they accepted what was given graciously.

But there’s always one who, if you gave them Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, they wanted Frosted Flakes. You put the PB&J sandwich down in front of them, and it’s an instant melt down because you cut the sandwich in triangles, not squares.

And don’t even get started about the shape of the macaroni that’s covered in cheese.

Maybe it’s time we pay a little more attention to the “under-the-radar” people and stop assuming they’re doing fine.

Give them a smile and a pat on the back and remember that just because they’re not making any noise that doesn’t mean they don’t need help or encouragement. They need as much if not more than the wild and loud ones.

It’s not hard to find these “under-the-radar” people – just look for those quietly doing what they’re supposed to be doing without demanding an audience.

Acknowledge their existence, compliment what they’re doing and thank the stars we have these “under-the-radar” people – they keep the world running smoothly.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Another school shooting.

Another group of high school teenagers, scarred forever.

Another round of asking “why” and never receiving acceptable answers.

In Parkland, Fla., a psychopath opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed young teenagers who had their whole lives in front of them.

He killed teachers who were educating young people, preparing them for college and the opportunity to raise a family and experience life.

There’s no reason for this vile person’s actions that will ever make sense to the world.

Watching teenagers file out of a school, their trembling hands on the shoulders of the student in front of them, running while armed police officers and S.W.A.T. teams with loaded rifles and guns, directing them to a safe spot, is a sight that’s becoming common place in American schools.

The scenes brought back memories of the Columbine High School shootings. I was home that day and watched with horror as teenagers fled for their lives against the two monsters that opened fire in their school.

There were strange kids in my high school class, and I grew up in a blue-collar city where people went hunting all the time. Almost every family had guns in their homes, and they were readily available to them.

Nobody ever brought a gun to school and opened fire on their classmates.

Something has changed in the past 20 years where deranged young people went from dreaming up a nightmare scenario to actually carrying it out.

Is it violence in video games? I’ve seen some of those first-person shooter games, and they’re gruesome. The player hunts down other players and shoots them, the blood flying everywhere on the screen.

Have these games anesthetized our young people to the damage a gun does to a human being? Is there no clue about the permanence of death and the scars they’ve inflicted on the school, the families, the town, the nation?

Do we blame social media? Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat remove the personal from conversations and interactions with each other. Cyberbullying is rampant, and when people make mean comments, we pay scant attention.

The next time you read a story online, scroll down and read the comments. You’ll be appalled at the filth people post anonymously. Their political and angry agendas are there for the world to see, and we just let it pass, citing freedom of speech.

So what’s the answer? Do we take away guns? Do we limit social media? Do we make every comment posted online transparent?

What about teens we suspect could be dangerous – are we unfairly labeling them if we report them to the school authorities as a possible unsafe person?

We’ll raise the same questions – how did he get the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles, what pushed him over the edge, what was his home life like, was he bullied.

The bottom line is this psychopath, this brutal murderer, made the choice to take a loaded weapon to a high school of innocent people and open fire.

He changed the lives of every person in that school, from the principal to the custodian to every teacher and every single student.

He altered the lives of the families of the students in that school, and he shattered the fragile illusion we had that our children are safe.

This violence has to stop.

We have to take a hard look at our young people, figure out why they’re so angry and address the problem instead of burying our faces in our cellphones.

America, it’s time to wake up.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

February is a busy month in our extended family. There are over 10 birthdays in this short month, and another three at the beginning of March.

When there’s seven siblings plus spouses, over 25 nieces and nephews and that many more children of our nieces and nephews, it seems the Heberts are celebrating year round.

But February boasts its own jam-packed month of cake and candles. We loved the major holidays, but birthdays had a special significance because it was the only day of the year that belonged to just us.

We had to share Christmas and Easter with each other. That was fine because we learned to share early on, but my mom always made us feel special on our birthdays.

She let us choose what we wanted for dinner. That might not seem like a big deal, but this was before pizza chains delivered to your front door and restaurants were on every street corner.

Mom worked all day in an office and then came home and made us whatever we wanted on our special day. One of us wanted her spaghetti while another wanted beef stew. She obliged, never complained, and she always baked our favorite cake.

At the time, I didn’t appreciate how hard that must’ve been on my mom, but I appreciate her more and more every year for putting herself second and for making us feel loved and spoiled, if just for one day.

She did have one trick up her sleeve to make life easier, and that was the decorating. My youngest sister’s birthday starts off the parade, so mom decorated early for her special day. The kitchen had crepe paper from one end of the dining area to the other, happy birthday banners on the walls and a pretty tablecloth.

Those decorations stayed up until the end of March.

It might seem odd that someone’s kitchen would be festive for six weeks, but I thought my mom was quite ingenious for making the best use of her time and energy.

I tried to make our sons’ birthdays special, and that was a little harder with our youngest two. Our middle son’s birthday is five days before Christmas and the youngest one’s is on Halloween.

When they got older, we sometimes went roller skating or bowling. But most of their parties were at our house. We usually had a hot-dog roast in the back yard, complete with a campfire, and at least five bags of marshmallows, bags of chocolate and two boxes of graham crackers.

One year we went to a friend’s camp, and the pond had been drained. The boys had tons of fun wallowing around in the mud. I’m not sure their moms were thrilled, but the boys had a blast.

Then there was the year we had 30 first graders over for a pirate party, and the skies opened up to relentless rain. Luckily, we had a big carport, so we played “Walk the Plank” underneath a covering while lightning and thunder reigned.

For our youngest boy, we usually had his party the weekend before Halloween, and we stayed away from costume parties so there was a difference between Halloween and his birthday. Except for the year he was Wolverine, and I don’t think he took that costume off for weeks.

For children, being invited to a birthday party is the highlight of their year. But so many parents these days throw elaborate parties for their youngsters and can only invite three or four guests.That robs other children of the opportunity to feel special by being invited to someone’s home and to someone’s party.

I’d much rather have 30 kids running around in my back yard, eating home-made cupcakes and drinking Kool-Aid than spoil six of them in a pink limousine.

You might be dreading the cleanup, but follow my mom’s lead – leave the decorations up year round and then all you have to do is get the marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers ready.

After all, children don’t really care about a limousine. They care that they were invited somewhere.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

The end of January marked the 21^st anniversary of the animated television series “King of the Hill.” Written by Greg Daniels and Mike Judge, the show followed the Hank Hill family through their daily lives in a small town in Texas.

The show remains popular on YouTube with some of the better episodes racking up thousands of views.

In real life, I’ve met people like Hank Hill, a down-home type who’d rather sell propane than work on Wall Street, Dale Gribble, who believes every historical event has a conspiracy theory attached to it, and the naïve yet loveable son of Hank and Peggy, Bobby Hill.

I’ve been a fan of animated cartoons since I was a kid. I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch our favorites – Southern sheriff “Huckleberry Hound” and the dim-witted cavemen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

One cartoon pre-dates most of the others – Popeye.  Some of his cartoons go back to the mid-1930s, and the backgrounds and animation are still as richly detailed as when they were drawn. The brutal fighting and the cavalier way women are treated make us cringe, but back then, Popeye made me actually consider eating spinach.

When I got a little older, I loved watching the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” Witty and funny, Rocket J. Squirrel was the smart one and Bullwinkle his dull-witted yet loveable sidekick.

The segment “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat” never got old. We knew Bullwinkle would never pull a rabbit out of that hat, but we could always hope.

It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I came to value Mr. Peabody’s dry wit and his escapes through history with young Sherman.

I enjoyed the “Fractured Fairy Tales” segments on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, but I appreciate them so much more now that I’m older.

As told by the iconic voice of Edward Everett Horton, the fairy tales never turned out the way they did in the fairy-tale books. The wolf wasn’t big and bad and Red Riding Hood wasn’t an innocent little girl skipping through the forest.

My sadistic side loved “Tom and Jerry.” The mouse always got away with pulling the wool over the cat’s eyes, but Tom never stopped trying to catch Jerry. What’s amazing is the creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, wrote these entertaining shorts without any dialogue.

The backgrounds and sets are richly drawn, the colors deep and gorgeous, and the musical score ranges from classical music to violins, flutes and bassoons written especially for the cartoon. There’s some disturbing racial stereotypes in some of the cartoons, but the action always centers on Tom and Jerry.

But of all the cartoons, I’ll always take time to watch Bugs Bunny. Voiced by the multi-talented Mel Blanc, that  rabbit is smart, witty and always gets the last laugh, especially over Daffy Duck. My all-time favorite skit is the one between Bugs and Daffy when it’s rabbit season vs. duck season. If you’ve never seen the episode, jump onto YouTube, take a look and make sure you watch to the end when Bugs turns rabbit season into goat season, pigeon season and dirty skunk season.

Bugs will lead you to another animated cartoon with no talking, only beautiful music – the never ending battle between Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, with a little help from the Acme Company. That in turn, will lead you to two of my personal favorites in the Bugs Bunny catalog, the loud-mouthed Foghorn Leghorn and the volcanic Yosemite Sam.

Whether it’s laughing at Bugs or agreeing with Hank Hill, nothing beats watching these richly drawn, funny and timeless characters.  So do yourself a favor – hop on over to YouTube and take a stroll down Loony Tunes Lane.

That’s all folks.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.