School starts next week, and parents are frantically downloading school supply lists, fighting the mobs on the pen-and-pencil aisles and reading every article on Pinterest about how to pack the perfect lunch.

Having been there and done that, I thought I’d pass on a few back-to-school tips you might not read in a parenting magazine.

Only bought two tubes of glue instead of four? Don’t sweat it. These days, all school supplies get dumped into a big bin and the teacher doles them out during the year. This is to make sure everybody has an equal amount of supplies. It’s also to prevent children from sharpening their pencils all the way down to the eraser on the first day because they’re fascinated with the pencil sharpener.

So turning in two glue sticks instead of four will not be a big deal when the teacher is trying to keep little Susie from crying because she sees Lydia has the Paw Patrol lunchbox she wanted.

Your child will survive not having a pencil that writes with blue lead on one end and red lead on the other. They will survive not having the latest Despicable Me backpack and they will survive having a bag of grapes in their lunch instead of a bag of chips.

Lunchboxes are not only cool but they’re also useful. Your child will use said lunchbox as second base when one’s not available after school. They will also play “kick the lunchbox” on their way home in the afternoon or while waiting for you in the nightmare carpool line.

Paper lunch bags are wonderful unless your children are boys and require two sandwiches, two pieces of fruit, a Little Debbie Cake, two juice boxes and a bag of chips in their lunch every day.

Then you have to go to one of the huge box stores and buy a case of oversized lunch bags that will last you until your last child graduates from college.

It’s not just the kids who have to survive school.

So do parents.

You will survive the vicious drop-off and pick-up line. Here’s a tip – bring a book to read. Better yet, bring two. Listening to books on CD or playing the radio will simply drain your vehicle’s battery because you’re going to wait in that line a long time. A really long time.

Your child will volunteer you to be a chaperone on a field trip. Whatever it takes, beg your child to not sign you up for the zoo field trip.

A trip to the zoo sounds fun until you remember that those trips take place on a school bus that’s not air conditioned. A zoo visit requires you to walk at least five miles in humid 98-degree weather to look at smelly animals that are all sleeping.

Volunteer to be a class reader or decorate bulletin boards. Volunteer to sit in the dunking booth. Even volunteer to work in the carpool line.

Anything but the zoo.

Your child will make friends. Your child will be friendless. Your child will be happy to go to school and then a pack of wolves couldn’t drag them out of bed.

And you, mom and dad, will also have days where you fret incessantly about your child because you sent them to school when they were worried they wouldn’t make any friends, thought the teacher didn’t like them or were worried about a quiz.

You’ll worry they won’t have anybody to play with during recess or they’ll get hurt or they’ll get in trouble. The hardest part of sending children back to school is letting them spread their wings and fly when you’re not there to watch them soar or not there to catch them when they can’t seem to get off the ground.

Your job is to lovingly remind them there are good days and bad days. In life, one decides what kind of day to have, not the other way around. And as you tuck them in at night, be sure and listen to their school adventures and reassure them that even though they don’t have a Paw Patrol lunchbox, life is still pretty good.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

Two men came into the restaurant while we were eating dinner in Norwich, New Hampshire. They resembled hippies with their long hair and beards, but my husband said they probably were hiking on the nearby Appalachian Trail. Opened to the public in 1937, the AT, as it’s called, is a 2,180-mile walking trail from Georgia to Maine, and thousands of people make the pilgrimage every year.

We struck up a conversation with the men as my husband has hiked portions of the trail. Sure enough, they’re what’s known as “through hikers,” people who start either at Mt. Katahdin in Maine or Springer Mountain in Georgia and finish the entire odyssey in one trek.

The trail takes walkers through gorgeous territory, from mountains to forests, and weaves through Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Both said they’d retired from their careers in their mid-50s, picked up their hiking boots and gear and headed out to complete a long-held dream of hiking the entire AT.

Most hikers adopt a trail name, and the gentlemen we were talking with had done the same. “Tripod,” a soft-spoken man, said he hailed from Georgia and “Tin Man,” a tall, slim man with an easy smile, had retired from a second career as a firefighter.

Tripod said he felt guilty about leaving his wife for a few months to hike the trail, so he came up with an idea that fit his spiritual nature. For every mile he walks, people donate money to help build water wells in Nicaragua. So far, he’s raised over $10,000, and Tripod said he felt he could help a ministry that mimicked his life on the trail where water sources are often scarce.

“We’re out here fighting for water every day, so I can’t imagine what people have to go through to fight for water every day of their lives,” he said.

He did have a plan for ending his trek in grand fashion. When Tripod came off the trail, he was heading to a dealership, purchasing a motorcycle and riding that bike all the way home to Georgia.

“Tin Man’s” life path was as rocky as some of the places on the AT. He watched firefighters help his father during his numerous heart attacks until his father passed away when he was 3 years old. Those early memories stayed with him when it came time to choose a career.

He didn’t want to put his widowed mother in financial difficulty for his college education, so he joined the armed services, enrolled in classes and discovered he was pretty smart. Smart enough to use the G.I. bill to earn a degree in nuclear engineering and enjoy a career in that field before heading over to his real passion, firefighting.

The two met on the trail and said walking all those miles allowed them to realize they’d lived good lives so far. As they talked about their journey, there was a calmness surrounding both of them, and I felt myself relaxing the more they talked about the peacefulness that came to be part of their daily life.

Each bend on the trail, each fork in the path took them to places they’d never been, and they got through over 2,000 miles by simply putting one foot in front of the other. They kept going, and that’s probably the best advice anybody can follow when it comes to accomplishing a goal.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a bearded and dusty hiker in the middle of the forest in Virginia, a tired and cranky commuter on the freeway in Houston or an unemployed college student, hungry for an adventure before responsibility comes bearing down.

It really doesn’t matter if you hike on the AT, through a state park or around the block in your neighborhood.

Adventure starts with taking that first step into the unknown and believing the answers will become clearer with each mile you travel through the unknown.

You might not ever step foot on the AT, but you don’t have to go that far to find answers. They’re as close as the next step you take.

            To donate to Tripod’s mission of helping drill a water well in Nicaragua, email him at jacarr242@gmail.com. This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

The line of people waiting to get into the church started in the front of the building, snaked down the side driveway and wound to the end of the back parking lot. Patiently, people stood in that line, waiting to pay their respects to David Stelzel, a beloved and long-time resident of East Bernard.

Stelzel passed away in a tragic accident this week, and family and friends are left to mourn. His obituary states he was born into a farming family and graduated from East Bernard High School in the late 1960s.

He started college, but was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam from 1971 to 1973. He returned to Baytown and began his family farming legacy, starting with his father, Awald. For 35 years, Stelzel and his brother, Harold, farmed, and Stelzel was proud that he had brought in 44 crops.

In the community, Stelzel served on the Farmer’s Co-Op Board of Directors for over 40 years and on the Farm Bureau Board of Directors for 25 years. All his success with farming and in the community is commendable, but his greatest joy was his family.

I can attest to that as I know his family, and they are down-to-earth people who would do anything for anybody. Stelzel’s wife, Brenda, taught at East Bernard High School for years, and there were quite a few former students at her husband’s wake. I interviewed Brenda a few years ago because she’d won numerous national awards as the yearbook teacher. We struck up a friendship, and I came to cherish her wisdom and down-to-earth advice.

When I heard David had passed away in an unforeseen accident, there was no way I would miss expressing my sympathy to her and her family.

I wasn’t alone. Over a thousand people were there to honor Stelzel, from older men wearing starched jeans and well-worn cowboy boots to young parents explaining to their fidgety children that, in times of sorrow, a community rallies together.

Standing in the line, I saw that solidarity. Residents out here take care of each other. They shop in the town’s businesses and they come out in force to cheer on the East Bernard Brahmas.

That camaraderie was evident in the way members of the church set up refreshment stations outside and made sure everyone was offered a cold glass of lemonade and a smile while they waited to pay their respects to the Stelzel family.

No one complained about how long they had to wait. No one complained about the heat. Instead, they talked about this year’s crop, the weather report for the upcoming week and reminisced about how either Brenda or David had positively impacted their lives.

Behind me in line was one of Stelzel’s good friends, Ken. He said he was still in shock because David was one of those guys everybody thought would be around forever. He took care of business in a quiet way, and did what he was supposed to do, from serving his country to working day after day on a tractor in the rice fields to spoiling his grandchildren, all in a town he called home.

With all the growth in Fort Bend County and the explosion of master-planned communities, it would be easy to categorize East Bernard as just another small town.

But that impression would be incorrect.

East Bernard is a city that’s held together by families from all cultures and walks of life who cherish and honor the deep roots they have in their community.

These families look out for each other, laugh with each other and, this week, cry and comfort each other.

David Stelzel was one of the pillars of the community, and he’ll be sorely missed. But he won’t be forgotten. His legacy was planted in rich soil out in East Bernard where others will make sure that love lives on for generations.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

While up in Aggieland this weekend, I decided to get out of the heat and tour the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library. The library is celebrating its 20^th year in 2017, and it’s well worth the short drive to College Station to see a presidential library. No matter one’s political affiliation, or whether or not you support the Bush family’s politics, this library is first class.

Each exhibit lends itself to the next one, the displays are interactive and there’s something to see from the floor to the ceiling in every part of the building.

The price of admission is reasonable — $9 for adults and $3 for children and students – for what you’ll see.

A long winding road leads visitors up to the sprawling library, and friendly docents greet you once you get past the metal detectors. The library is high tech, and the admission ticket includes a speaker you can wear around your neck if you want more information as you move about the exhibits.

Often times, we think of museums as dusty, boring places, but the Bush library is vibrant and informative in an engaging way, from a recreation of the Oval Office and Bush’s office at Camp David to the hundreds of gifts from foreign dignitaries given to Bush when he was president.

The long wall near the entrance details the Bush family’s background, and one can understand how the Bush and Walker families came to become such powerhouses in America.

There’s an actual presidential limousine on display, and it’s fascinating to get close enough to the car to look in the windows and see the leather seats in the back.

The family traditions section traces the Bushes and the Walkers lineage, and it was interesting to find out that Bush was an outstanding baseball player from the time he was young all the way up to playing first base for Yale University.

That love of baseball stayed with him all his life, and he kept his glove from his college days in a drawer in the White House – always oiled – while he was the president.

I knew Bush had served in the U.S. Navy as a young man as a pilot. Hanging from the ceiling in that section of the library is a life-sized restored Avenger airplane, similar to the one Bush flew in the war and was piloting when he was shot down over the Pacific Ocean.

Photos in this section of the library show a young 21-year-old Bush being rescued after floating in the ocean for three hours. That might not seem like a long time, but in an interview that plays, Bush said he knew the possibility of being captured was a real possibility. He also knew he might never be rescued and could die out there in the ocean.

At the age of 20, Bush was awarded the Navy’s Iron Cross for valor. I thought about that young man, who was the age of most of the Aggies walking around College Station, floating in that vast ocean, not knowing if he’d be rescued or die in a POW camp.

Barbara and George Bush were married young and their printed wedding invitations had a blank where the date should’ve been printed. Instead, the wedding date was written in by hand. That’s because they weren’t sure when George was coming back from the service.

But he did return, and George and Barbara started their family right away. From the pictures and their recollections, the couple saved their money and worked hard as their young family grew and George started his oil business.

The displays of his making a living in the Texas oilfields is well documented, and personal letters bring visitors into the lives of this young couple.

It might seem like Bush had a charmed life – born into money, attending Yale University and making a fortune in the oil business – but the Bush’s second child, Robin, became listless when she was 3 years old and was diagnosed with leukemia.

She died before she was 4 years old from a disease that is now 90 percent curable. For decades, Bush carried a charm in his wallet that honored Robin, and a letter he wrote to his mother in 1958 about Robin will bring tears to your eyes.

Robin is now buried at the presidential library where her mother and father will one day lie.

Throughout the museum, artifacts, letters and photos take visitors into the personal life of a man who experienced the biggest triumph a politician can achieve and the worst nightmare a parent can envision.

POLITICS:

A visit to the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station is refreshingly informative, beautiful and a step through history. That this building is less than three hours from our doorsteps makes a visit a must.

George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41^st president of the United States, and his political life is a walk through some of the most incredible times in our nation’s history.

Bush began his political career in Texas, and the many campaign buttons and signs reflect a time when politicians had to personally campaign for every vote. There’s a copy of a hand-written letter Barbara Bush sent to many of the female voters in George’s district, asking them to vote for her husband.

Bush’s biggest claim is as president, so it’s easy to overlook his lifetime in public service, both on the local scene and at the national level, including time as a diplomat.

His political career is well documented in a way that is informative and entertaining. There’s political bumper stickers and buttons on display, videos from his actual speeches and newspaper clippings detailing Bush’s victories in Texas and then on to the White House.

One of the most stirring videos was when President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to Congress following an attempted assassination attempt on his life. Few people knew at the time how close Reagan came to dying, but seeing the video stirred lots of memories of that scary time.

Bush’s time as director of the CIA was also detailed in video, pictures and letters. On display is an actual section of the Berlin Wall. That slab of concrete is a sobering reminder of how part of the world was cut off from the rest for so long.

One side of the wall is brightly painted with words of encouragement and peace and the other is steel gray, and that’s what the East Berliners saw for many years. I looked at that wall section a long time, thinking of how so many people in the world are still behind walls and the efforts we still need to take to tear down those walls.

At many of the exhibits, there are drawers visitors can pull out and inside are laminated copies of letters and extra details so you can read and see for yourself what was happening at that point in Bush’s life.

The White House is an elegant place, and there are two vignettes that are wonderful to see life size. One depicts a state dinner, complete with the White House china and silverware and the gown Barbara wore.

The other is a duplicate of the Oval Office, complete with Bush’s desk, and you actually feel as if you’re standing in the most famous room in the world.

I especially enjoyed seeing all the gifts other countries gave to Bush during his tenure as president. There was an intricately carved ivory tusk from Africa, and numerous gold-plated bowls and dishes.

One of the best spots is a reading room filled with children’s books, a miniature wooden replica of the White House and couches where you can sit and watch the Bushes when they were on television shows, like “David Letterman” and “Saturday Night Live.” Their sense of humor comes through loud and clear.

There’s quite a few tributes to Barbara Bush and copies of the many books she’s written in a cozy reading room near the rear of the library.

No matter if you agree or disagree with his politics, George Herbert Walker Bush did his duty, both to family and country, and left a legacy to be proud of. This former president deserves the respect he’s earned through a lifetime of service, and the presidential library in College Station is a fitting tribute to this man.

So take a ride up Highway 6 to Aggieland and tour the museum. You won’t be disappointed.

 

This column was originally a two-part series and was published in The Fort Bend Herald.