For a woman, walking across a parking lot after the sun goes down can be scary. The sound of strange footsteps behind us makes it easy to picture a stalker with a knife or gun, ready to rob or rape us.

Most of the time, that person is unaware their presence is frightening. I once confronted a young man who was walking too close, and he was shocked that I’d think he meant me harm.

But that’s what happens with unintended consequences.

My son and daughter-in-law were the victims of unintended consequences when she was shopping in their home town. She and her friend were at the huge box store when they realized a lone man was following them.

When they left, he left, and they saw him get in a truck and pull out onto the same road they were on. Frightened, they tried to lose him on the way home, taking a different route.

When they finally got home to their small farm out in the country, they ran in and locked all the doors and windows.

Throughout the rest of the night, vehicles drove slowly by their house, a few even coming into the driveway, until my son scared them off. They called the local police who didn’t seem to think this was a big deal.

But my daughter-in-law was terrified. They have four small children, and there’s not a lot of traffic around their home. They decided to stay up all night and guard their home, their children and themselves.

They called the police again the next day, and a young deputy wondered if the people were looking for Pokemons.

And that’s exactly what was going on.

Seems my son’s house was the original site of the post office in that area back in the early 1900s. The people behind “Pokemon Go” put one of the more desirable Pokemons in my son’s back yard, never checking to see if someone lived there.

The unintended consequence of putting a Pokemon on their property caused my son’s family to be terrorized for almost two days.

People were getting pretty bold trying to catch the Pokemon, even driving onto their property and trying to sneak behind their house and into the yard without thinking that they were trespassing and scaring the people who lived in the house.

They finally found a hotline number to call to take their house off the “Pokemon Go” site, but they couldn’t get the company to remove their property from the game. Their request is “under review.”

So now my daughter-in-law has to constantly capture the Pokemons, wait for them to regenerate and capture them again.

The unintended consequences of a “game” has taken this young family hostage and won’t let go. My son had to miss work when this first happened because they didn’t know who was stalking their house, and he was going to protect his family and property.

Before this game started, they never thought twice about letting their children play in the back yard, climb the trees near their garage or ride their bikes.

Now my son and daughter-in-law have to worry about strangers coming onto their property day and night, all because they want to capture a Pokemon.

For those who forget that their actions have consequences, think before you act and have the decency to change a game or a fad when it negatively affects innocent people. 

So no “Pokemon Go” here.

It’s “Pokemon Get Out and Stay Out.”

 

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

Denise Adams’ email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com.

Just stop it.

Stop it right now.

Those were the direct orders I issued to my two youngest sons whenever they were fighting. Which, when they were growing up, was at least once a day.

The bickering was usually over small things – “he’s staring at me!” to more substantial accusations – “he broke my Wolverine guy!”

After one major dispute, paying for broken staircase spindles and spending a few afternoons sanding, painting and replacing the broken ones pretty much put an end to resolving differences with body slams.

In today’s explosive climate of hate, prejudice and bigotry, perhaps stopping the violence and retaliations could boil down to three simple words – just stop it.

Nancy Reagan tried something simple back in the 1980s in her war against drugs. Her slogan was “just say no.” Even though people laughed, that’s not bad advice.

People will say this idea, too, is naïve, and perhaps it is. But the highfalutin ways of spending billions of dollars in arms to scare others into not bombing a democratic society hasn’t worked.

So maybe we need to try something within our communities, families and in the groups we belong to and get to the root cause of the hatred. Look at the rhetoric being spewed and stop it.

Instead of looking for ways to inflict pain and suffering on innocent people so the “guilty” will pay, why not look for peaceful solutions that, after all the bloodshed, just might work.

Those who wear the uniform, if you know of anyone on the force who targets minorities, tell them to stop judging someone by the color of their skin or their accents because their prejudices are costing innocent lives.

Those who feel they’re being targeted because of the color of their skin – you might be right. But that won’t keep you alive. What will is establishing communications between law enforcement and our neighborhoods so everybody understands we’re all on the same side.

Nobody wants to be robbed.

Nobody wants their car stolen.

Nobody wants their son, daughter, mother or father arrested and sent to jail. Let’s work together to make sure that those who choose to make bad decisions are reprimanded.

Not just those born into poverty.

Not those who put their lives on the line to protect and serve.

Not those whose skin color is different than ours.

People are tired of reading that innocent children, fathers, mothers, teachers, secretaries and laborers were killed because some mentally unstable person decided to show America, France or England a lesson.

Instead of looking for a knee-jerk reaction that causes untold harm and havoc to people who had nothing to do with the carnage, find peaceful ways to establish trust and acceptance between the countries.

Even as I type those words, I have serious doubts we’ll ever find a solution. I never thought my sons would stop fighting, but they eventually did when they understood the word “brother” did not mean “enemy.”

That only came when they decided to look at each other as human beings and potential friends. Older brother learned that younger brother had guitars he could borrow and was willing to run errands for him.

Younger brother learned if he stopped annoying his older brother, he’d be asked to go along on shopping trips and was included on Nintendo game nights.

By getting along, they both benefitted. As a bonus, they didn’t have to put up with their mother breaking up fights, punishing them, yelling at them, threatening them and losing privileges. Life was a lot easier when they learned to get along.

Maybe some basic parenting could work in the real world.

So just stop it.

Stop the bombing, the hating, the retaliation, feeling like you have to live “an eye for an eye” and understand when we all get along, everybody benefits.

Mostly, everybody lives.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

 

I’ve said goodbye twice this week. Thank God they were not permanent goodbyes, but they were farewells, knowing I wouldn’t see that person again for quite a while.

The first was to my mom. Even though we talk every day on the phone, it’s not the same as seeing her sitting at my kitchen table, working the newspaper’s crossword puzzle, a cup of coffee nearby. 

I watched her as she worked the puzzle – in pen, she’s that confident – and knew to treasure these mornings. Soon she’d be back home, both of us going about the routine of our lives. So I savored every moment of the week she was here.

The next goodbye was to my eldest son, Nick. He’d flown in from Taiwan for a quick one-day stayover before jetting off to his step-brother’s wedding in Cancun.

On his way back through, he had a seven-hour layover in Houston, and I wouldn’t have missed an opportunity to spend time with him for anything.

He arrived on the day I came back from Mom’s. Before leaving her house in Louisiana, I hugged her one last time in the driveway, sniffling after I turned the corner, knowing I’d miss having her all to myself, hating to say goodbye. 

But I knew I had a hello waiting for me in Houston with Nick during his layover. He’d arranged to have dinner with friends, and I didn’t want to intrude. So we spent two hours shopping and then had to say our goodbyes.

He hugged me so tight, I couldn’t catch my breath. But that was okay because I was squeezing him back with the same force.

I smiled as big as I could, told him to have a great dinner and to call me when he landed. He drove off with his friends, not seeing me boo-hooing as I drove away in the other direction.

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. They start when we’re a baby. One day, we’re big enough for a big-kid bed, and we feel so grown up.

Mom and Dad, on the other hand, feel a pang of sadness because their little one is taking steps toward being independent and not needing parents as much.

There’s the first day of school. Every year, I took a picture of my boys getting on the school bus with fresh haircuts, new socks and shoes, and a slightly worried smile on their faces.

I remember saying goodbye to them, waving until the bus was out of sight, and then following the bus to make sure they got off and into their classrooms safe and sound. I’d wait around until I knew they’d said “hello” to the teacher, and then I’d leave.

They thought I was being ridiculous, and maybe I was, but it was hard to let go to their needing me.

One of the hardest goodbyes was when they left for college. I knew nothing would ever be the same again once they checked into that dorm room.

They could come and go as they please, attend class if they wanted or sleep the day away. So when I hugged them goodbye and drove away from the campus, I knew I was saying farewell to much more than their physical bodies.

I was saying goodbye to their childhoods.

But they were saying “hello” to their adult lives. Instead of crying, I had to smile because the best, for them, was yet to be. And that’s the way life is – a goodbye on one end means a hello on the other.

Now when we say goodbye, we give each other hugs and say “love you” before breaking away and going our separate ways.

And look forward to the next hello.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

We were late for our connecting flight and made it to the gate minutes before they closed the doors. It wasn’t our fault – our originating plane was late leaving the Houston airport, giving us less than 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight in Phoenix.

On Southwest Airlines, there’s no assigned seating, so my husband and I found ourselves in the very back of the plane and on separate rows. I sat between a middle-aged man with his iPod buds firmly planted in his ears and a young man punching away on his phone.

At least the flight would be quiet, I thought, as I settled in and took out my paperback.

After a while, though, I needed a break and decided to watch the landscape below us. We’d long left the flat lands of Texas, and mountain ranges stretched out below the plane.

The business man was sleeping, but the young man next to me was looking out the window, just like me. He was wearing a ball cap and a plain T-shirt, and he reminded me of my sons.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Portland,” he replied. “I’m meeting my dad there and we’re heading out on a trip down the coast, just the two of us.”

That was more information than I normally get on an airplane these days. Before iPods, laptops and iPads, people usually chatted with the people sitting next to them on airplanes.

Today, what’s on an electronic device is more appealing than a live human being in the seat next to us. But this young man was willing to interact with me, and so we started talking.

Over the course of the next hour, I found out Joey wasn’t some dumb Millennial. He was a college student studying business and marketing. He hailed from Las Vegas, Nev., but wanted to get away from the glitz of Vegas.

“I didn’t go far,” he said with a laugh telling me he attended school in Arizona. “But it was a good break from home.”

He told me he and some friends were at the front end of a brand-new business venture. The excitement was evident in his voice as he described their business of setting up machines to dispense ballerina shoes in casinos.

He said he always noticed the girls who worked in the casinos would walk around barefoot after their shift. They had to wear high heels while on duty, and they couldn’t wait to put on comfortable shoes.

He thought it would be a neat idea to offer soft shoes to anybody who had to stand on their feet all day, or all night long, and so he drew up a business plan, patented it and they’re now in the fine-tuning stage.

Joey was quite excited about his venture, and I marveled at his enthusiasm and willingness to embark on a business venture at the age of 23. So many young people are interested in what’s on their cell phone, what Beyonce’s up to and they haven’t a clue about what’s going on in the world.

I realized I’d sorely misjudged this young person. He had brains, ambition and a willingness to follow his dream. This summer morning, Joey took a chance on a stranger, hoping she’d listen to his dreams and perhaps see the same possibilities he saw.

That’s a big chance to take, and I was grateful he’d talked to me. The flight was over before I knew it, and I wished him well on his endeavor.

“Maybe one day I’ll see your machines in airports and casinos all over the place,” I said as we were retrieving our carry-on luggage.

“I sure hope so,” he said with a smile and wished me a good day.

Little did Joey know, my day was already good because of him.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.