Over the weekend, I went to Louisiana to celebrate my mom’s 89^th birthday with her. I stopped in Lafayette to pick up flowers and some supplies for the party.

On my way down Ambassador Caffery Parkway, I noticed they were re-striping the road, and traffic was backed up at least three miles. I told myself not to take the same route back to the interstate.

After getting what I needed, I could’ve used my phone to find a route through Lafayette so I’d miss that traffic jam. Truth is, I didn’t know how to tell Google Maps to snake through Lafayette. So I reverted to the tried-and-true paper map.

There’s a Louisiana, Texas and Houston paper map in my vehicle at all times. There are routes I can only find when I spread out the paper map on the hood and examine all the side roads.

Sure enough, I found I could take Congress Avenue through Lafayette and pick up I-10 on the east side of town. That route took me past beautiful homes, stately oak trees and a few parks where kids were playing soccer and riding skateboards.

For once, I was glad I didn’t have technology at my finger tips to help me figure out a solution to a problem.

We’ve become so dependent on Google for things we used to use our brains for. I’m guilty of taking the quick and lazy way out and using Google instead of figuring it out for myself.

Occasionally I’ll use Google for recipes, but the best resources are the paper cookbooks on my shelf, especially books I’ve gotten from local church organizations.

No Louisiana kitchen is complete without the original River Roads Recipe cookbook – the best recipe in the world for home-baked brownies is on page 190. One of my earliest memories of my mom’s kitchen is the red-checked Better Homes and Garden cookbook she used for decades.

Besides Google, there’s two major services that take most of the thinking out of our lives – Alexa and Siri. They’re voice controlled, online digital assistants.

Amazon sponsors Alexa, and Siri is for Apple customers. Using your smart phone, Alexa can turn on your coffee maker, play music and answer difficult questions.

You can ask Siri the weather in London, recommendations for the best restaurants and the height of Mount Kilimanjaro. You’ll have your correct electronic answer in seconds.

My answers would be rainy, the restaurant that’s closest to my house and “tall, really tall.” My answers aren’t as precise as Siri’s but they’re accurate.

Alexa can help you check things off your to-do list. True, but using a pen or pencil and running a line through the checklist on a piece of paper gives me immense satisfaction. I don’t think I’d get that with a virtual check mark and an electronic list.

Alexa and Siri can change the channel on your TV, but I still remember when children were the only remote control in the house.

My dad would be relaxing on the couch and tell one of us to go change the channel. That was an aggravating job unless you were the kid who got stuck holding the rabbit ears antennae because the reception was better with that human connection.

Alexa will burp and make monkey sounds. I’ll take listening to kids make those noises any day of the week. Plus the kids give you the added bonus of making adorable faces while performing those tasks.

One thing they both have in common is they never tire of your questions. They’ll never roll their electronic eyes at you nor will they say “I already told you that.” Their patience is infinite.

I was proud of myself for finding my way through Lafayette. I’m also happy when somebody asks me a trivia question, and I know the answer without resorting to an online service.

Finding a quick answer on my phone isn’t nearly as satisfying as finding the answer inside myself.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

My husband and I took a trip up the Massachusetts coast recently. Number one on our sight-seeing list was going on a whale-watching expedition.

Online photos showed giant whales jumping out of the water, waving their fins at sightseers on the boat. Friends told me they loved watching the whales in their natural environment.

So I signed us up. When we arrived, a sign in the office said “choppy” waters.

That’s like saying a karate chop from Jackie Chan is a love tap. That boat rocked every way but straight, and the wind turned a cool breeze into an arctic wind machine.

An hour later, the boat finally slowed down and we saw – off in the far distance – the back of something gray.

As quick as the whale’s back was visible, it was gone. Twenty minutes later, we saw another gray back. Again, off in the distance. Then it was time for the return trip to the shore. I spent that hour inside the warm galley, glad I’d taken Dramamine.

I chalked this up to another experience I thought was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime, fabulous event only to have it turn out to be somewhat disappointing.

This has happened to me before. Plymouth Rock comes to mind. I pictured a giant boulder, something the size of a tow truck.

Nope.

In reality, Plymouth Rock is about the size of my pillow. I felt fleeced.

On the flip side, there are things you think are going to be humdrum and turn out to be a fabulous experience.

Years ago, my brother, Jeff, and I took a chance on a Saturday afternoon movie we knew nothing about – “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

We initially thought we’d while away a couple of hours in an air-conditioned theater. Instead, we had the best movie watching experience of our lives.

You might think watching “Paw Patrol” with little ones is boring. But when a child snuggles up next to you, that boring half hour turns into a memorable experience consisting of nothing more than blissful calm. Oh, and said child saying they want every toy advertised on every single commercial.

Washing dishes after a family meal is usually a task we dread. But that humdrum chore allows you to visit with your family or friends, and those casual conversations become memorable moments.

Spending idle time with your grandparents or parents might not seem like a big deal. But later in life, those afternoons will be ones you’ll wish you could revisit.

They’ll casually tell you their views about life, love, commitment, fun and the old days in those leisurely moments. It might be the only time you’ll have their undivided attention in an unrushed environment.

If you spend time cooking with your parents or grandparents, you’re indeed fortunate. Not only will you learn how to master family recipes, you’ll hear all kinds of family stories over a pot of simmering gumbo or while basting a brisket on the family grill.

Humdrum household chores can be a golden opportunity to show your children how to take care of themselves. While folding towels or changing the sheets on the bed, use the time to tell your children about your chores when growing up.

The point is to pass on family memories while doing something seemingly unimportant. Try not to be a martyr during the telling although when we were kids, we did walk uphill to school.

Both ways.

I didn’t see a giant whale jumping out of the ocean on that boat trip. But later in the week, I saw a sailboat gliding along just off the shore, its sails full of possibility, the ocean calm with blue skies overhead.

I saw possibility and adventure in that simple moment. I’ll take that over a rock every single time.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Today is my mom’s birthday. Telling her age wouldn’t bother her, but she reared me to have manners, so I won’t tell her age, only that she’s a smidge over 80.

Delores Eade was born in Olean, N.Y., the second child to Henry and Albedia Eade. They were hard-working immigrants from Lebanon, and they welcomed their new dark-haired daughter with open arms.

She was quite a willful child growing up, or so the stories go. Her sister still has a scar on her hand from when my mom threw a fork at her and it stuck in her hand.

Then there’s the time she let go of the baby stroller carrying her little brother at the top of the hill and raced the buggy to the bottom. Luckily, she won.

Delores was a smart girl, but her parents were stubbornly old fashioned. Good Lebanese girls got married, had babies and lived near their parents. They did not go to college, but that wasn’t what my mom wanted.

She wanted to go to business school. So she told her father that her cousin was going and she supposed they weren’t as wealthy or as good as her cousin.

She knew her father could never accept that his children weren’t as good as his brother’s children, so my mom got to go off to business school.

A young coed, she met a handsome sailor in Virginia Beach one fun weekend. Old black-and-white pictures in an album show a vivacious woman on the beach with her friends, not a care in the world.

The young sailor was smitten with her, and she discovered, like her, he was Catholic and wanted a big family. They fell in love and thought they could figure out that she was a protected daughter from the North and he was a carefree, handsome son of a printer from the South.

They married and moved to the South, but when my dad’s father passed away, they moved back to the North, right next door to my grandparents. That lasted as long as it could, and then my dad moved his six children and his wife down to Louisiana.

It wasn’t easy. Her mother sent her hurtful letters about how she’d abandoned them, and week after week, my mom read those vile letters but never told us.

Instead, she went to work every day and then came home to prepare a hot dinner for her now seven children every single night without complaining.

I don’t remember being without anything I really needed, and I don’t remember my mother being gone – she was always there for all of us.

She stayed with an alcoholic husband who divorced her. But when he was terminally ill, she allowed him to move back in with her because she knew his grandchildren adored him and they needed each other.

She taught me it’s possible to forgive, even the most hurtful actions, and it’s possible to move forward and blossom, even when one thinks the roots are dead. She taught all of us to laugh at ourselves first and that there’s sunshine in even the darkest days.

She tells the truth, even when I don’t want to hear it, and having a hot cooked meal is the answer to almost all of life’s problems. We were never allowed to miss Sunday dinner with each other, and she always had a tablecloth on the table for those weekly meals after Mass.

She is adored by all seven of her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, nieces and nephews. Yet she takes that in stride, always claiming she’s the lucky one to be surrounded by such an incredible family.

So happy birthday, Delores Hebert Eade, mom, Siti, Sit-Siti and my best friend. I love you more than I can ever say. Thank you for not only being the best role model but for being someone who has shown me how to live and, more importantly, how to love.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Names are tricky. Luckily, mine is pretty easy, but mistakes still happen. My first name can be spelled “Denice” or “Denisse.”

My last name will sometimes get two D’s instead of one, but that’s usually when the “The Addams Family” movie is being shown.

Growing up in the North, my last name, Hebert, was constantly butchered. My Dad was a Southerner with a Cajun last name who happened to move to New York State.

To those who know the ingredients in andouille sausage and eat it anyway, there’s no problem pronouncing Hebert. It’s “A-Bear,” like in the sentence “I saw a bear in the woods today.”

But for people who’ve never stepped foot in Louisiana, Hebert is usually pronounced “Hee-Bert” or “Heb-Bert.” I remember explaining how to pronounce my name to my teachers because they’d never met a real Cajun before.

These were educators who could pronounce every Polish, Italian and Lebanese name in the phone book. They had no problem with Kowalski or Kneiser.

But throw an Hebert or a Boudreaux in the mix, and every one acted as if we’d told them our names came from the ancient Aztecs.

Once we moved back to Louisiana, nobody ever asked me how to pronounce my last name. After all, this is a state where the words “Atchafalaya” and “Thibodaux” roll off the tongue as easily as “barbecue” and “ribs” roll off a Texans’ tongue.

By the way, that’s “Ah-chaff-ah-lay-ah” and “Tib-ah-dough.” The first is a huge swamp along I-10 where you will inevitably run into a traffic jam and sit unmoving on a causeway for 45 minutes with no way to get off.

The second is a Cajun last name that’s as common as Smith or Jones in states where they incorrectly pronounce crawfish as crayfish.

When my husband and I moved to Texas, we brought our Louisiana pronunciations with us. In Louisiana, a big body of water is a bayou, pronounced “bye-you.” Here, it’s “buy-oh.” When we saw Bissonnet Street, we pronounced it French style, “Bis-son-aye,” while Texans say “Bis-son-et.”

Roads were a tough one for us back then.

Interstate 10 is also called the Katy Freeway. I-45 is known as the Gulf Freeway and Loop 610 is known as “The Loop” even though two more freeways circle Houston.

I finally realized these roads are named for where they either originate or end up – Katy, the Gulf of Mexico and the unending loop around the greater Houston area that’s always under construction.

The grand winner in the confusing street names is U.S. 59, otherwise known as the Eastex Freeway, I-69, the Southwest Freeway and the Lloyd Bentsen Highway.

I still laugh about one of the first phone calls I made in Texas. I was trying to find a store near Sharpstown. I told the man I lived in Richmond.

“Well, you get on the Eastex Freeway,” he began.

“I’m sorry. Which freeway is that?” I said.

“The one that goes from east to west,” he said.

“Can you give me a number, like 610, 10 or something like that?” I asked.

There was silence.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We just moved here from Louisiana and I’m not familiar with the street names.”

“From Loo-zianna, eh,” he said, pausing. “Then let me talk slower.”

If you really want to fit in with the Cajuns, do not ever say you’re happy to be in “New Or-Leans.” Simply say your favorite breakfast in “New Aw-lins” is “café-oh-lay with a side order of ben-yays.” By the way, that’s strong chicory coffee mixed with steamed milk and a side order of fried doughnuts covered with confectioners’ sugar – Café Au Lait and beignets.

They’ll think you’re a native.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

 

 

On a rainy afternoon, a Sean Connery film was playing on cable TV. I’m a big fan of the late Scottish actor who was the face and voice of “Bond, James Bond.”

I also liked Connery later in his career because he wasn’t afraid to toss his toupee and show the world’s sexiest man was actually bald.

My dad started losing his hair when he was in his 20’s, and he constantly agonized about his receding hairline.

Finally, he decided to order a toupee. I remember the day the hair piece arrived. My mom taped a note to the back door stating “It’s Here!” and my dad ran inside to open the box.

We weren’t sure what to think, but my dad was over the moon that he could finally cover his bald head.

Few were fooled, but wearing the “rug” made him feel good, so we went along with his attempt to cover the baldness.

Over the years, my dad put on weight. His head got a little bigger, but he was too frugal – well cheap – to buy a new toupee. He would simply tug down on the back part of it whenever a sliver of his scalp showed through.

My brother says one of the funniest things he’s ever seen was when my dad was at an amusement park. They were on a ride where the round wall spins and the floor drops out from underneath the riders. The centrifugal force keeps the riders plastered against the wall.

As the ride spun, dad’s toupee slowly floated up in the front, only staying on because Dad’s head was against the wall. My brother spent the whole ride watching my dad attempting to lift his arm up so he could clamp his hand down on the toupee to keep it from potentially flying off.

Dad eventually grew tired of how hot his head felt in the summer and he missed swimming. One day, he ditched the rug for good, claiming he had better things to do with his energy than grow hair on his head.

My brothers, sons and most of my nephews are also either bald or balding. For the most part, they’ve accepted their fate gracefully.

Our youngest brother calls himself “The Bald Avenger” on his popular website, and one of my sons thinks being bald is a good deal. He doesn’t waste time combing his hair or spend money at a barbershop.

While watching an episode of “Ted Lasso,” one of the characters bemoans the fact that he can no longer play professional football, soccer to we Americans. His girlfriend, knowing he’s upset, asks her boyfriend’s young niece to describe her uncle.

She never once mentions he’s a football player. I decided to try the experiment on my family in honor of my dad’s upcoming birthday.

I asked them to describe Pop using only three words. I gave no more direction than that, and here are the words I received in response:  optimistic, direct, insightful, opinionated, entrepreneurial, goofy, spirited, magical, hopeful, spontaneous, energetic, dancer, charismatic, suave and force of nature.

Dad was all of those things and more. But there was one adjective no one mentioned.

No one said bald.

Not one person.

Something that bothered my father all of his adult life wasn’t even mentioned by those of us who knew and loved him well.

Those who love us don’t really notice the physical traits that bother us the most. They see us for who we are, both on the outside and on the inside.

They know us for our talents, whether it’s sewing, playing the guitar, dancing or drawing.

They won’t remember us as fat, skinny, tall, short, bald or hairy. They’ll remember us for giving of ourselves in times of need. They’ll remember we listened to them cry or tell us about their day.

They’ll remember our kindness when we tucked them into bed at night or listened patiently as they told us a story.

They’ll remember if we had soft skin, strong arms or a comfortable lap. They’ll remember our singing voice, our laugh and the stories we told.

They’ll remember backyard barbecues, shooting hoops and baking cookies together.

Above all, they will remember we loved them.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

While tracking Hurricane Ida, I searched social media for additional information. I saw posts asking why anyone would stay in Louisiana after all the hurricanes and flooding they’ve experienced.

My blood boiled.

Why in the world would anyone live in California where mud slides take out houses in seconds and wildfires roar through the state every year?

Why would anyone live on in Minnesota where ice storms are a certainty and mosquitoes, the size of a small bird, are a constant pest?

And why would anyone live in Texas where the summers are brutal, the roadways are packed and a tropical depression can drop 50 inches of rain on a coastal city on any summer day?

The reasons are basic – family, friends and familiarity.

People in every state deal with natural disasters. Hawaii experiences powerful tsunamis and uneasy volcanoes, and Alaska has weeks where the sun never sets. But the snowy landscapes in the north and the white-sand beaches on the islands are unmatched in their beauty and majesty.

Alabama and Mississippi get bad press for their educational systems, but their beaches and rural country sides are lush and unspoiled.

Arkansas is often singled out as survivalist country, but this state has gorgeous hills and thousands of bubbling creeks shaded by oak and hickory trees.

Although the New England states deal with frigid “nor’easters,” the warm colors of the leaves in the fall can’t be beat, especially when driving on quiet country roads through covered bridges.

The Midwest takes a beating in the press for being boring “fly-over” country. The miles of rolling green corn fields from Iowa to Kansas are unequaled, and these states have earned their title of “heartland.”

The Wild West is hot and dusty in states like Montana, Utah, Colorado and the Dakotas, but just try and find a more gorgeous sight than the sun setting in the Rockies or snow-kissed firs in the winter.

New Mexico is criticized for their tough summers, but their red and orange canyons are a painters’ heaven.

Some of us look at the dry desert lands of Arizona and Nevada as home while others prefer the lush greenness and rock-filled rivers of Georgia and the Carolinas.

My birth state, New York, has brutal winters and high taxes, yet their gentle mountains and busy metropolitan cities offer something for everyone.

No matter the climate or the potential for a natural disaster, every state is home to someone.

We’ll roll the dice and take our chances with hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes because 99 percent of the time, life is ordinary.

In that ordinary, we find the extraordinary kindness of friends and family and the grit and determination to keep going no matter what happens.

Louisiana and Mississippi have a huge task in front of them, and many are still recovering from past storms. But just as they’ve done many times before, these Southerners will roll up their sleeves and not only clean up their homes but those of their neighbors.

The barbecue pits will be smoking, neighbors with power will house those who lost theirs and donations will pour in from those who escaped Mother Nature’s wrath.

Cousins will arrive in pick-up trucks with shovels, and strangers will reach out in their communities, offering whatever help they can.

Because families take care of family.

It’s going to take a lot more than a hurricane, mud slide or tornado to stomp out the spirit of those who come through adversity with their can-do attitude intact.

Things can be replaced and life will go on. That’s what we do in the places we call home.

 

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.