Christmas is tomorrow and, like most people, I’m scrambling, making sure I’ve purchased and wrapped gifts for everyone, the turkey’s defrosted and there’s eggnog in the fridge.

I’ve been blessed with good health, a wonderful family and more than enough of what I need. But since Santa’s a magical guy who promises to deliver things we want, not necessarily what we need, here’s my pie-in-the-sky Christmas list…

A convertible.Yes, Santa, I know this wish is totally impractical. There wouldn’t be room for the four car seats I need for my grandchildren. I also need plenty of space for my briefcase, camera bag, over-sized purse and boxes of books on CD from the library.

But to cruise along a back country road in a sleek convertible, the top down, the wind blowing through my hair and the Beach Boys blaring, what a wonderful ride that would be.

A cruise. I’ve never been on a cruise. In fact, I’ve been on very few boats in my life. But imagining a week with unlimited delicious food, having my bed turned down every night and visiting exotic locations would be a dream come true.

However, my stomach is unreliable and, thanks to a bout with salmonella years ago, unfamiliar foods send my stomach into orbit. I’m afraid a week on the open seas would do the same.  

So Santa, if you could send me on a cruise where I wouldn’t have to deal with anti-sea-sickness patches all over my back, I’d be a happy camper.

A trampoline. An odd Christmas list, Santa, but I don’t want a trampoline because I have four young grandchildren.

I want a trampoline for me. I’d love to jump up and down, do flips and let loose much like any 7-year-old child does when presented with something to jump on. You’d have to include courage and a neck brace for me to carry out these acrobatics, but to fly through the air would be worth the risk.

Courage. Much like the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz,” I’d love the audacity to stand up to bullies, slay the wicked witches of this world and protect my loved ones with a snarl and an intimidating style.

I did have the courage to stand up to the con man at a recent street festival who charged $5 to throw a dart at a balloon and then gave children a plastic water pistol.

When a short, obviously angry woman stands in front of your tent and says at the top of her voice “how do you live with yourself ripping off little children?” and demands her money back, I guess I’ve got buried courage.

Which, come to think of it, so did the Cowardly Lion.

An afternoon. This is probably the hardest item on my Christmas list, Santa. I’d like an afternoon to spend with my dad.

He’s been gone for over 13 years now, and there’s so many things still left to say. I want to tell him all about my grandchildren and thank him for being a magical “Pops” to my children.

I want to ask his advice about how to grow older without ever having to grow up. I want to smell his Old Spice aftershave one more time and let myself get swallowed up in a bear hug that only dads can give to their daughters.

And then, just maybe, I’d have the courage to take my dad’s hand and jump on the trampoline with him. And that, dear Santa, is my Christmas wish list for 2014.

To all those who have a pie-in-the-sky Christmas list, may all your wishes come true and may Santa deliver everything your heart desires.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

On my way home every afternoon, I call my mother. I actually enjoy the long drive because she’s such a good conversationalist.

Today, however, instead of her cheery “hello,” a message came on saying the phone number was not in service.

That was impossible. Mom’s had the same phone number for years.

So I called a few more times and got the same answer. Then I tried calling Mom on her cell phone. I knew this was useless because Mom can never find her cell phone, but I had to try.  

When the “leave a message” prompt came on, I hung up and called my brother, Joey, who lives near Mom. I asked him if there’d been a power outage, and he said there hadn’t been.

“I’m in town and I’ll go over there in a few minutes to make sure she’s okay,” he said, much to my relief.

This wasn’t the first time I’d called my younger brother to check on Mom. The first time was years ago after my father had passed away and Mom was living alone for the first time in her life. I called to check on her and she picked up the phone, breathless.

“Just a minute,” she said and I heard the phone drop to the floor, hitting chairs and the wall on the way down.

After five full minutes, she hadn’t returned, and I panicked.

What if she’d fallen and hit her head? What if she’d had a stroke? What if she was bleeding and no one was there to check on her?

These were the wild questions running through my mind because those were the worries she’d shared with me a few weeks earlier. Living alone is scary, especially for a widow.  

So I called my brother, Joey, who lived four blocks away from Mom’s house. My sister-in-law, Debra, answered the phone.

“I need Joey to go over to Mom’s right now and check on her,” I said, explaining what had happened.

“He’s on the ladder painting the house,” she said.

“Tell him to get off the ladder and get over there right now,” I said in true bossy pants, big-sister style.

And in true, younger brother “better-do-what-she-says” fashion, and because Joey’s one of the kindest people in the world, he jumped off the ladder, got in his car and drove like an Indy 500 race car driver over to Mom’s.

He burst in the back door, the paint still wet on his clothes, and yelled for her.

She had been in her wallpaper store, a small business she ran from the house.

“Your oldest daughter in Houston called and told me to get over here,” he said, still out of breath.

“Oh yeah, the doorbell rang at the same time the phone rang,” Mom said. “I meant to come back to the phone but I forgot.”

Joey looked at her, shook his head and stomped out to his car. He went home, got on the ladder and didn’t speak to me for two weeks.

He was entitled.

So today, thinking back on that event, I told him what had happened and he said he could be at Mom’s in less than 15 minutes. I thanked him, but in the meantime, called Mom. She picked up and said the cable service had been out all afternoon.

Without any explanation, I told her I’d call her right back, and I quickly punched in Joey’s number to tell him Mom was fine.

“And I didn’t have to get off a ladder to find that out,” he said, a laugh in his voice.

No matter what, I know I can count on my brother, Joey, to not only take good care of Mom but to never let me forget that when it comes to panicking, nobody holds a candle to his bossy-pants big sister.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

My first assignment at The Fort Bend Herald, formerly the Herald-Coaster, was as the obituary writer. I had other responsibilities, but then-editor Bob Haenel told me the obituaries were the most important part of my job.

For some people, their obituary might be the only time they would have their name in the newspaper, and I’d better make sure I spelled everything correctly.

As I typed, I found myself wishing I’d known some of these people who were no longer with us. They’d served their country, survived tough childhoods and brought themselves up from dirt poor to establishing foundations.

So it was with sadness I read that Lucille Stewart Jackson passed away. I interviewed Lucille over 10 years ago, and it’s an afternoon I remember well. The retired nurse had invaluable knowledge about Fort Bend County, especially Kendleton.

She was so gracious in her little house just north of Pecan Grove and willingly shared the memories of growing up black, poor and proud.

We talked about how life was back in those days, and she could recall details with exact clarity. She remembered the people, how it was to be not quite accepted but to keep working toward equality and fairness.

The obituary mentioned she had two sons, Nolan and Donald, who were both deceased. What the obituary didn’t mention is that her sons were killed in an automobile accident together. In one evening, Lucille lost her entire family, but throughout her life, she always helped others, especially her church, Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church.

There are many people in our midst who were instrumental in the early days of Fort Bend County, and I wish I had time to visit with each and every one because their memories of growing up here are fascinating.

The story from Junior Hartledge who drove cattle across what’s now New Territory. He slept underneath the stars, never dreaming of the metropolitan suburbs that would one day replace native grasslands and sprawling prairies.

I often think about the stories I heard from Virginia Scarborough and the wonderful, Southern way she recalls growing up here and of the safety and security she felt on the streets of Richmond.

I felt the same nostalgia when I heard childhood stories from Arthur and Lydia Mahlmann and Mason Briscoe, especially how Saturday nights were full of excitement in downtown Rosenberg.

Girls would try out the new lipstick at the drug store while the young boys sipped on beer and munched on sausage. Families came in from the fields on the weekends and filled the downtown streets of Richmond and Rosenberg with music and laughter.

I can’t pass a corner grocery store in Rosenberg without thinking of the family whose father went to the store every Sunday afternoon to help neighbors call their families back in Mexico.

I often think of a 97-year-old man I interviewed in Sugar Land who remembered sleeping in the sugar cane fields at night because people of color weren’t welcomed in the houses.

His memories were of  stalks waving in the moonlight as far as the eye could see. What a sight that must’ve been but how sad that he wasn’t allowed in the main house, not even for his marriage ceremony.

I’ve been privileged to listen to stories from those who served in World War II, Korea and Viet Nam, and not just men. I’ll never forget the afternoon I spent with four women who were nurses during World War II and how they held the hands of their fellow soldiers as they lay bleeding on the battlefield.

And now we’ve lost Lucille Jackson. Fort Bend County is a better place because she was here and a sadder place because she’s no longer around. May you rest in peace, Lucille.

I know you were welcomed into heaven’s gates by two smiling, familiar faces.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

I just watched a three-part series on a home decorating Website about how to decorate the perfect Christmas tree. I started to doubt the smartness in this series when the first video showed the consumer how to take the artificial tree out of the box.

A professional decorator proceeded to tell me to take three rolls of wide ribbon – this store  is in the business of selling lots of sparkly things to people – and meticulously thread the ribbon through the artificial tree.

She then added at least giant ornaments to the tree in addition to numerous strands of blinking lights.

By the time she got through, I couldn’t believe I’d wasted 4 minutes and 36 seconds to watch some girl turn an artificial tree into something that looked like a drunk decorated it for Bourbon Street.

I’m not an expert, but there are a few Christmas tree traditions we followed when our boys were young to ensure we had the perfect Christmas tree.

First, we always got our tree from a tree farm. You’ll find a tree that’s either a lot smaller once you get it home or so big you have to chop off the bottom two feet – for which you paid good money – just to get it through the door.

But while you’re out in the cold, walking through mud, listening to heated arguments over who gets to cut the tree down, you’ll eventually find a tree everyone can agree on.

Time to Decorate

At home, we employed a step-by-step method to decorate the tree. We started with the lights, and we’ve never had an evening of decorating the tree without someone stepping on the lights as we’re stringing them on the tree.

I can’t blame the boys. I’m always the one who steps on the lights.

Next is the garland. Every year, I tell myself to buy shimmery gold garland. Every year, I forget. So we end up with three feet of metallic silvery garland I bought back in the 1980s that only goes around the tree once. But it’s tradition to put garland on the tree, so we leave it.

Then it’s time for the ornaments. I have every single ornament my sons made, starting in pre-school all the way through elementary school. That now-yellowed macaroni angel has just as prominent a place on the tree as my ornament from the White House.

The most nostalgic ornaments on the tree are the one-inch thick slice from the bottom of the boys’ first Christmas tree. Nick’s is 33 years old, Stephen’s 28 and Chris’ is 27. They remind me how quickly they went from little babies to grown men.

Some of the ones I love the most are the plastic snowflake ornaments the moms at Pecan Grove Elementary gave to the students every year.

If I never said thank you, ladies, I’m doing so now. Those ornaments with my sons’ pictures from first through fifth grade are probably the most cherished decorations on our tree.

The final touch are the fake icicles. I tried to convince the boys to place the icicles on the tree one by one, but they were impatient by the time we got to that point in the decorating evening.

We ended up with clumps of icicles on the tree that look like blotches of aluminum foil. I’ve come to expect that’s how the tree should look.

So with half the lights working by the time Christmas Eve gets here, plastic Ronald McDonald ornaments peeking out in between the branches and faded bread-dough ornaments on the tips of the branches, I couldn’t ask for a more perfect, if somewhat unprofessional, Christmas tree.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.