Growing up in New York State, there were certain things I knew to be true. Sweaters were never put away because the summer night-time temperatures often dipped in the 50s.

The only “pool” we knew about was the city park pool where people threw pennies in during the summer and ice skated in the winter. Winter toys included sleds and toboggans, and our moms put flannel sheets on the beds come September.

We moved to Louisiana when I was in middle school; and over the years, I’ve come to understand some of the differences between Northerners and Southerners.

Let’s start with winters. Northerners know when the last leaf falls from the maple tree, it’s time to unpack the snow pants, gloves, mittens, woolen scarves, down jackets and thermal underwear.

They stock up on salt to spread over their sidewalks, make sure the car’s snow chains are ready and give the snow blower a tune up.

Southerners haul out their sweat pants but keep their shorts handy because we’re usually running the air conditioner on Christmas Day. We make sure there’s a new spark plug in the lawn mower because we just might be running that bad boy the day after Thanksgiving.

Cast-iron pots and pans aren’t items cowboys use. They are family heirlooms, passed down carefully from generation to generation. They never – gasp –see soap and water. Instead, they are wiped clean with a paper towel and placed back on the gas-top stove to air dry.

Every once in a while, we wipe the inside out with lard or Crisco and put the pan in the oven for a few hours to re-season the cast iron.

Don’t even think about letting that cookware rust.

Ever.

Our insects are fierce in the South. Northerners have sweet bumblebees and colorful yellow jackets but we have cockroaches that are as big as a mouse and seem to fly.

And let’s not forget fire ants. Growing up, I remember watching harmless black ants for hours in our back yard.

Here, we have fire ants that are indestructible. In a flood, they band together and create islands that float to a new destination where they double in number in less than an hour.

Southerners know they’re in Yankee territory when they see the word “crayfish.” Calling crawfish anything other than crawfish is a sure giveaway that you’re not from a southern state.

So is mispronouncing the word “pecan.” In the South, it’s “puh-kahn.” Anyone who pronounces it “pee-can” is describing something people might use in an outhouse.

Despite our differences, there are truisms Northerners and Southerners share. Front porches are not only treasured, but they’re an extension of our hearts and our homes.

No matter the size of that porch, it’s there where we watch our children play, visit with our loved ones and relax as the sun sets.

Football teams require devout loyalty and a willingness to go all out for the team. There’s no way a Southerner can laugh at a Green Bay Packers fan for wearing a foam cheese wedge on her head when we paint the shutters on our homes purple and gold to show our loyalty for the LSU Tigers.

We share a love of family, country and faith. How else to explain our belief that one day the Houston Texans will go to the Super Bowl and the Pittsburg Steelers will recreate the glory days from the 1970s?

Maybe if we join forces, we can figure out how to get rid of those fire ants once and for all because, watch out Northerners, those monsters are on their way to you.

Now if we can just convince you that the only acceptable kind of tea is sweet tea, then we’re home free.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

They’re back.

They’re more addictive than chocolate-covered strawberries and fresh, hot buttered popcorn at the movie theater.

Once again, I’m writing about Cadbury Mini Eggs.

Those delicious, calorie-heavy delicious solid milk chocolate eggs covered in a thin coating of a hard candy shell that are absolutely irresistible.

In my humble, chocoholic’s opinion, Cadbury Eggs are the only Easter chocolates worth the calories.

Yes, there’s other Easter candies out there that have been around longer and are more closely associated with Easter.

Specifically, the marshmallow Peeps. According to their website, over 700 million yellow, pink and blue sugar-covered marshmallow Peeps are sold every year.

All traditional Easter baskets have a few yellow Peeps peeking out over the plastic green grass, but that’s too much straight sugar for me.

Likewise with jelly beans, yet their popularity grows every year. As a result, everybody’s trying to get into the jelly bean business – there’s Starburst, Brach’s, Mike & Ike, Starburst and Jolly Ranchers jelly beans.

The Jelly Belly Company took the guess work out of jelly bean sleuthing. They print a picture of the jelly bean and its flavor on the back of the bigger bags for those who hate surprises. Nothing’s worse than biting into a red Jelly Belly, thinking it’s cherry, and your mouth burns because it’s cinnamon.

No Easter basket is complete without the requisite chocolate bunny. The basic think-walled chocolate bunnies — the ones with the candy eyes and carrot necktie – still rule the middle shelf of the candy aisle.

As they should.

A look up and down the Easter candy aisle this week revealed dozens of spin offs from the Easter basket basics. There’s a cellophane package that looks like a carrot filled with Reese’s Pieces.

Sorry, Reese’s Pieces, but you’ll always be the Easter wanna-be when it comes to the granddaddy of Easter candy, the basic M&M.

Easy to eat and delicious, even though every single one tastes exactly the same, no Easter basket is finished unless the Easter Bunny throws a handful of plain M&Ms into the basket.

Nothing comes close to the basic M&M for the most chocolate in a small package. Not a mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Not the gold-covered chocolates that look like coins but taste like wax. Imposters all, so I’m glad my Easter Bunny insists on the real thing – M&Ms.

For those who want something a little bigger than an M&M, there’s Lindt fancy chocolates. At $7 a bag, that’s a treat the Easter Bunny leaves for mom and dad.

And why shouldn’t the parents get a gift from the Easter Bunny? We subsidize that rabbit, so we should get a cut of the action at the front end.

But back to the gold standard of Easter basket treats, the Cadbury Mini Egg. Some of the chocolatiers tried to cash in on Cadbury’s action a few years ago with solid milk chocolate eggs.

Sorry, Hershey’s and Nestlé’s, but your brand of chocolate is best enjoyed in a long, thin bar, not a chunk of chocolate wrapped up in foil that’s almost impossible to remove.

So if anybody’s interested in starting a “Cadbury Eggs Anonymous” group, give me a shout. I could be off the hook, though, because Cadbury Eggs are only available in the United States around Easter. After that, one has to order them online and pay a hefty shipping fee.

Even this Cadbury Egg addict won’t pay for extra shipping, and I don’t think I can convince the Easter Bunny to make a return appearance in May.

This Easter, may your blessings, chocolates and jelly beans be plentiful. And may the Easter Bunny bless you with not one but two bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Some people are worriers. I’m one of those.

Some people are procrastinators. Guilty as charged.

Some people are panickers. I’m not only one of those, but I lead the pack.

I’d like to be the person who remains calm in a crisis, talks others off the ledge and can quietly guide the masses to peaceful pastures. Instead, I think the worst is going to happen, freak out and gallop full speed ahead in panic mode.

I wasn’t always like this. When I was a teenager, I looked at disasters as adventures. After I got my driver’s license, my dad let me have his old Pontiac Executive, but the tank had its quirks.

The brakes didn’t always catch, but if I pumped them hard enough, I’d eventually come to a stop. Still, I didn’t panic when that happened, which was most of the time.

I can’t blame panicking on genetics. My mom is one of the calmest people I’ve ever observed in an emergency.

One afternoon, my great aunt came to visit with her daughter. Aunt Adele was sitting at the table, and Mom noticed she’d become glassy eyed and then her aunt slowly started to slip out of the chair.

Her daughter started screaming, but my mom remained perfectly calm.

“Go get a glass of water and a cold washcloth,” she told me, all the while holding my aunt’s head up and telling her cousin to calm down.

Her aunt came around in a minute or two, but my mom never lost her cool. I was quite impressed with her calm presence, and I’ve never forgotten that incident.

I believe the panic stage started when I had my first child. I would go in and check on him almost every hour to make sure he was breathing. Occasionally, I’d have to nudge him a little to get him to move so I’d be sure he was okay.

With my second son, I relaxed a little – not a whole lot – but I’d still go in and nudge him a couple of times during the night to make sure he was okay. With the third son, I just let him sleep with us until he was about a year old so I wouldn’t have to get out of bed.

Forget peanut butter or hot dogs until they were in first grade. I’d read toddlers could choke on those two foods. So they were banned from the pantry.

I’ve read hundreds of articles on how to remain calm, but I can’t seem to follow their advice when things go haywire even though I intellectually know they’re right.

Step one – before reacting, assess what’s happening. My assessment is the ship is not only taking on water, but it’s sinking and sinking fast.

Step two – breathe. Experts say to breathe in deeply and calmly while taking stock of the situation. Oh, I’m breathing all right – fire and brimstone and sheer panic. My heart’s pounding, sweat is rolling down my back and all I can think is – why is somebody telling me to breathe instead of helping fix the “we’re-all-doomed” problem.

Step three – call for help. That one’s easy because my mom or my husband are two people I call for help. I’ve seen my mom in action, and my husband is the calmest, most capable person I’ve ever met in an emergency.

He’s the reassuring presence in my life, and after I ratchet down from screaming “Call 911 immediately” back to the “I-can-handle-this” level, I have to apologize for running around like the sky’s falling in.

Luckily, after almost 40 years, the man gets me.

And never reminds me to breathe.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.         

I’m not a huge outdoors person. But when the sky is an unlimited cobalt blue, the humidity is practically non-existent and the temperature hovers around 72 degrees, I’m spending time outside.

Luckily, that perfect triangle came together on the day we decided to take our four grandchildren to one of most spectacular areas in southeastern Texas – Brazos Bend State Park.

Not only is the park a short driving distance from any place in Fort Bend County, the price is right. For two adults and four eager children, the admission total was $14 – that’s less than it costs two of us to go to the movies.

A friendly volunteer welcomed us to the park, and I wondered how she could have a smile on her face as there were six cars in front of us, and I know we weren’t the first ones to the park during spring break. But smile and welcome us she did as she wished us a fun day.

Since it was noon, we headed back to Hale Lake for a quick picnic lunch so we’d have time at the visitor’s center and to walk some of the numerous trails in the almost 5,000-acre park.

While I spread peanut butter and jelly on some bread, the kids found trees to climb. Their squeals of delight was music to my ears, and they played tag and ran until they were out of breath.

After the trees had been conquered, we headed to the visitor’s center. The kids couldn’t wait for what they thought was going to be the highlight of the trip – the opportunity to pet a baby alligator.

But we saw a group of people in the amphitheater next to the center, so we headed over to see the show.

A park ranger was talking to the crowd as a snake lazily coiled around his arm, and the kids were mesmerized. When he said they could come down and pet the rat snake, the line of excited youngsters reached from the stage to the top of the theater.

In terms everyone could understand, the ranger talked about the importance of all creatures in the environment, cautioned children to not pick up snakes and then asked for questions. All four of ours shot their hands up in the air, and I knew the ranger had hit a home run.

Once inside the center, our grandchildren visited the patient volunteer holding a baby alligator at least 10 times, picked up every skull and shell on the nature table and watched the alligator jaws open and close for five full minutes.

Then it was time to head out on the trail. By this time, our neighbors had joined us, and six children took bets on how many alligators we’d see that day.

They took in everything on the trail, from the wildflowers to the coots paddling around on the lake as catfish lazily swam beneath them. No one complained about the distance, and they were thrilled when we told them we were headed to the observation tower where they could see for miles.

I stayed at the playground with the 3-year-old while the older ones headed out to the tower and had a chance to people watch. Children of all ages were using the strong limb of an oak tree as a swing, and there was constant laughter as they bounced up and down on the see-saw they’d created.

People were on the dock fishing, others were taking photos and others were lying back in the grass, soaking up the sun. I didn’t see anybody talking or texting on a cell phone, and that included me.

We were unplugged and unhurried, and that feeling lingered as we drove out of the park, all of us tired but filled with the satisfaction that comes from a day well spent at this crown jewel in the Texas Parks system.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

“He was so young,” my mom would say with a sigh as she read the obituaries in the daily newspaper. “He was only 65.”

I remember hearing her say those words when I was a teenager and thinking “Sixty-five? That’s ancient.”

The closer I get to that age, the more I think “Sixty-five? That’s so young!”

The obituary page and I have a long association, starting with those daily musings from my mom. I largely ignored the obituaries unless a friend’s parent passed away or someone I knew died unexpectedly.

It wasn’t until I came to work at this newspaper that I discovered the importance of a well-written obituary. One of my first job responsibilities was typing up the obituaries and occasionally helping a family member write an obituary for a loved one.

At first, I distanced myself from the obituary, telling myself they were people I didn’t know and the write-up required me to spell the names correctly and make sure I got all of the obits in that day’s newspaper.

It wasn’t until I had to help a tearful woman write her mother’s obituary that the words hit home to me – this write-up wasn’t just an article in the newspaper. This obituary summed up a person’s life, their achievements, their families, their dreams and the sum total of their lives.

Mostly, I was amazed at the accomplishments people earned over a lifetime.

Many were military veterans who honorably and proudly served their country and often met their future spouse while serving.

Some obituaries listed the careers and awards the deceased achieved during their lives. The reporter in me wished I’d have met that person when they were alive so I could’ve talked to them about their accomplishments, from drilling oil wells in the Middle East to those who worked at NASA during the early days of the space program.

The pictures included with obituaries always surprise me. At first, I didn’t understand why people would publish a picture of themselves in their 20s when they passed away late in life. I think it’s how they see themselves when they look in the mirror – not as an 80-year-old living on a fixed income but as a 20-something optimistic person with their whole life in front of them.

My heart always breaks when the obituary is for a young child or a teenager, and I find myself thinking of those families for weeks after reading or typing the obituary. The pain never leaves nor does it ever diminish. We simply learn how to handle the loss.

Then there are the obituaries that make me smile and wish I’d met that person. They’re the people who threw caution to the wind, wore what they wanted, said what they thought and never met a stranger.

None of the obituaries I’ve ever written or read stated that the deceased’s career was the light of their life. They were proud of their accomplishments, but that’s not what brought them joy and fulfillment.

The obituaries that make the most powerful impact on me describe a wonderful grandparent, the adoration their families had for them, the love they had for their pets – who are always named in the obituary – traveling to far-away places and volunteering in the community.

Reading the obituaries changed how I live my life. I understand we’re only here for a short time and, one day, what we did will be printed somewhere.

Make sure that’s what in that write up is you loved and laughed with all your heart and woke every day looking for the wonder that’s around every corner.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

There’s lots of words that describe me – mom, wife, sister, daughter. Then there’s the other words – bossy, loud, clumsy. But one word that would never be ascribed to me is the word “gentle.”

I thought about that description when I saw an online post regarding the time Fred Rogers, known to most of us as Mr. Rogers, appeared before the Senate in 1962 to request funds to help support a new concept, national public television.

This was the first time the senate had ever seen Rogers speak because he was relatively unknown at the time.

A young and earnest Rogers told a cynical Senate panel that children need to learn to trust. Rogers talked about reaching more children through television to help them learn the small things in life that make a child feel safe and loved.

Despite the gruff manner of the senator, Rogers kept his calm, quietly convincing the panel that quality programming was needed to develop the inner needs of young children. He ended his testimony with a reading of one of his songs about what to do with the mad that you feel.

“I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish, I can stop, stop, stop any time and what a good feeling to feel like this,” he read in that never-hurried familiar voice.

His testimony convinced the Senate to fund public broadcasting. Fred Rogers was beloved by at least three generations of children, and I count myself as one of his fans.

He didn’t get that love by bopping characters on the head, using profanity or bathroom humor. He taught children simple lessons – routines can be soothing, neighbors are important in one’s life and the little things in life, the things children notice, are important.

And he did all of that through a gentle, calm manner that’s not in great demand these days. It’s a shame gentle movies like “The Indian in the Cupboard,” “The Black Stallion” and “Searching for Bobby Fischer” aren’t more popular.

The heroes in these movies are quiet children who come to understand that gentleness, not brute force, is the way to face life. They do the right thing in the movie while maintaining their self-respect.

Instead, we flock to loud movies filled with CGI effects that practically blow us out of our seats. If a movie doesn’t have at least five explosions, two or three characters that speak as if a sailor gave them elocution lessons and unsavory characters, then the film’s a flop.

As much as I enjoy action-packed movies and loud music, my soul often yearns for quiet– a stroll in the park where the only sounds are the leaves rustling high above my head, pebbles skittering across a well-worn path and songbirds calling to each other from the tree tops.

The only times I come close to a state of gentleness is when I’m rocking a sleeping child late at night when the house is quiet and still. Occasionally I’ll find myself walking along a wooded path in our neighborhood, and I can practically feel my muscles unwind.

I know people who are gentle from time to time, but I know very few who are gentle with everyone, from children to adults to animals.

In this hurry-up world filled with distrust, anger and a fear of the future, it’s difficult to maintain a gentle attitude, and I count myself guilty on all counts of throwing gentleness to the side.

I need to remember the words Mr. Rogers taught us – “Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”

Maybe there’s some gentleness in me after all – I think Mr. Rogers would quietly tell me to go find it.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

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.