When I woke up on my 15^th birthday, the only gift I wanted was to get my driver’s license. I remember going with my grandmother to the DMV office, and I was waiting at the doors when the instructor unlocked the door.  

I knew the rules of the road because my dad had been teaching me how to drive since I was 10 years old. I always sat right next to him, and he’d pass on his driving knowledge, especially on long trips.

     He told me to look at the interstate as a slow-moving play and I needed to pay as much attention to what was behind me as to what was in front of me.

There weren’t that many cars on the road back then, so it was easy to plot out where I needed to be so I wouldn’t get stuck.

 “Just play it slow and think out your moves,” he said.

That was then.

This is now.

And, sorry to tell you Dad, but the rules have changed.

There is no playing it slow on the interstate. Driving on any major thoroughfare is similar to Luke Skywalker trying to blast the Death Star as he barrels down a narrow corridor with enemy ships all around.

Cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses and SUVs zoom along I-10 at a minimum of 70 miles per hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic. One slam of the brakes results in a chain reaction of dented fenders a mile long.

People don’t use their turn signals. In fact, they usually change three lanes at a time at break-neck speed. Turn signals are obviously optional accessories on their vehicles, and there’s never time for other drivers to use logic to figure out what to do – it’s survival of the quickest.

     One of the moves I always dread is merging into traffic. When I first got my license, I could count on the generosity of other drivers.

Cars on the interstate either moved over to the left-hand lane when somebody was entering or slowed down to let the merger in.

Not today.

Most of the time, the incoming cars either hit the gas and zoom in front of you or they go too slow, causing the impatient drivers behind them to swerve around the slow vehicle and cut in front of you.

I can grumble all I want, but there’s no getting around the importance of vehicles in a Texan’s life. Our cars aren’t simply gas guzzlers to take us from Place A to Place B. They’re our home away from home.

We talk on the phone in our cars, check our email while at red lights, send text messages when we shouldn’t and some of us eat most of our meals in the car.

 We have family meetings in the mini-van on the way to soccer or baseball practice, and we hold Bluetooth phone meetings on the commute home.

We usually don’t mind spending that much time in our vehicles because they’re pretty comfortable – leather seats, air conditioning and sound systems that resemble Carnegie Hall.

Even better, today’s car is smart. In fact, it’s smarter than most people.

Your car knows the temperature inside and outside, when the engine’s about to overheat and the tire pressure on all four tires at all times.

Your vehicle will nag incessantly if you leave the keys in the ignition, the oil’s too low or if you left the headlights on. Better yet, the car just turns those off for you.

But some driving skills never go out of style – pay attention to what’s around you, courtesy goes a long way and always check the rear-view mirror.

And most of all, when you merge into traffic on I-10 or Highway 59, may the Force be with you.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

School starts in about a week for most of our youngsters. Even though I don’t have any young ones at home, I remember the excitement as summer wound down, knowing they’d be in school all day long.

Because I’m no longer up at 6 a.m. fixing school lunches, running frantically down the street in my slippers with a forgotten lunch box or searching for a non-existent blue and red pencil on the school supply list, here’s some advice for parents to help make those first few weeks a little easier.

First, no matter how you approach your child’s lunch, you’ll get it wrong. Either they didn’t like what was on the cafeteria’s menu, they dropped their tray on the way to their table or they didn’t like the sandwich you packed them – even though it was their absolute favorite the day before.

Secondly, if you have boys in third grade and older, do not put notes in their lunch box. Especially notes where you sign your name with pink hearts and smiley faces.

If your child takes a lunch to school, do your kid a favor – pack some junk food so your kiddo can be the top trader at their lunch table or just enjoy a treat. Sometimes, a Little Debbie cake goes a long way toward a smooth school day.

We all have questions when they come home, and we all get the same answer – “I don’t know.” If you ask the all-encompassing “how was your day” question, you will get one of two answers – “fine” or “horrible.”

Both will leave you with more questions than answers. Does “fine” mean they made friends, had a good time at recess and their best friend remembered they were their best friend?

Or does “fine” mean “don’t ask me any more questions because school was so wretched, I can’t even talk about it.”

Worse is the “horrible” answer. If your child is talkative, you’ll have 30 minutes of complaining about everything from the stupid note you put in their lunchbox – “only babies get notes from their mom” – to how stupid the kids are, how stupid recess is and how stupid school is in general.

You can’t fix stupid so ask questions that will put a smile on your child’s face and get you an answer. How about “so who picked their nose in class today?” Trust me, you’ll get an answer to that question.

At the very least, the question will lead to a discussion of why your child should not pick their nose in class and the importance of washing their hands on a regular basis.

Some children are natural talkers. My boys liked telling me who threw up in class, who said they had to throw up in class, that they were the one who threw up in class and the teacher said she was going to throw up in class if anybody made one more throw-up remark.

Taking them to school sounds appealing. You’ll have a picture of your little darlings piling into the car with smiles on their clean faces, their hair brushed and all supplies neatly snuggled in their backpacks.

Reality is quite different. If you can get everybody into the mini-van, you won’t get out of the driveway before somebody yells that they forgot their lunch, their homework or their backpack.

As you wait for said child to run inside and get the item, you’ll notice nobody brushed their teeth or their hair. One child will probably be wearing the same clothes they wore the day before, so that child has to run in and change.

On the way to school, you’re driving as fast as you safely can, all the while giving all the children a lecture about being on time, the importance of choosing their clothes the night before and that their inability to remember things makes everybody late.

You’ll screech into the school parking lot, everybody will pile out without a backwards glance and you’ll breathe a sigh of relief. Then you’ll hit the “play” button on your iPod and listen to the entire “Hallelujah Chorus,” a smile on your harried face.

And then realize you have 180 more fun days just like this one in front of you.

 

Denise Adams’ email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com.

“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.”

Recently my mom and I were on the couch, sharing a blanket on a rainy night, when we came across one of our favorite movies:  “An Affair to Remember.”

We’ve seen that movie a thousand times, but we still tuned in for the last part of the film because it’s the best part. It’s when Nickie Ferrante finally figures out why Terry McKay didn’t meet him at the top of the Empire State Building.

He realizes she was too proud to tell him she couldn’t walk and she didn’t want to be with him unless she could stand on her own two feet. Today, all he’d have to do is call her cell phone or check her Facebook status to see what really happened.

Maybe that’s why my mom and I are huge fans of movies from the 1950s. Movies like “Madame X” and “Imitation of Life” were unrealistic but they made us believe that love could conquer everything.

The late Nora Ephron must’ve grown up with the same playlist as she brought “An Affair to Remember” back as a major plot in the 1993 film “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan play the star-crossed pair, Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed. In the movie, Annie and her friend, Becky, are obsessed with the movie. At one point, Annie and Becky mouth the dialogue along with the actors and admit they’ve watched that movie too many times.

Mom and I said the same thing as we recited, word for word, every line in the last five minutes of “An Affair to Remember.” And, just as we did 50 years ago, both of us sniffled and teared up at the end – the music swelling, Nickie hugging Terry, knowing they’d live happily ever after.

Well at least until the credits stopped rolling.

Because let’s face it – Nickie Ferrante is a painter in the movie, and we all know most artists are starving.

Terry McKay, who was hit by a car on her way to the Empire State Building resulting in her not being able to walk, somehow managed to get on that couch at the end of the movie without a wheelchair in sight.

But reality doesn’t count in the movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. They all have beautiful people, convoluted story lines and sappy endings.

Today, people say we need darker, more realistic films that reflect the current times.

As a result, someone thinks having the most wholesome character in comic-book land, Superman, fight one of the most popular good guys in the D.C. universe, Batman, is a great idea.

For this I’m going to plunk down $9.50?  No thanks.

When I watch movies, I’m looking for inspiration or a few laughs.

And why?

Because we live in a world where people down the street turn out to be terrorists that kill innocent people and mothers shoot their beautiful teenage daughters in their front yards.

Where major airlines get shut down seemingly for no reason — conspiracy theorists can’t post their rantings fast enough — so we pile on the panic.

Pardon me if a little escapism is what some of us need from time to time.

So my winter won’t be cold. I’ll have memories of snuggling up on the couch with my mom, watching Terry console Nickie and the audience with the promise “If you can paint, I can walk. Anything can happen, don’t you think?”

I’d like to think that yes, in this crazy world, something good can certainly happen.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.