I’m not a fan of rainy, cold days. To avoid the dreariness, I hunker down inside, either with a book or surfing the ‘net. Sure, I could mop the floor or rearrange the pantry, but the computer is too tempting and I’m too weak.

One of my favorite surfing stops is power washing videos. From driveways to tractors to old rugs, power washing videos are satisfying entertainment because you can see the actual change from filthy to clean in a matter of minutes.

Maybe that explains why I like watching Julian Baumgartner restore damaged paintings. Julian takes old, damaged paintings and painstakingly removes the grime, dirt and varnish to restore the painting to its original vibrancy.

As a bonus, you can watch the conservator work without the sound on if you’re on a boring Zoom meeting.

Cleaning videos are also right up there on icky days. There’s often some good ideas, but I draw the line at the people who steam clean their ovens or pull out appliances to clean the floor under them. Also in the “no-way” column are people who use power tools to remove lime scale from shower walls.

The videos I enjoy are the ones where someone takes a messy room – much like mine – and demonstrates how to tidy up and clean with the least amount of effort. They’ve taught me how to use every-day items in creative ways.

Dawn dishwashing liquid can be used on everything from rehabilitating ducks to removing dirt from bathtubs. Dishwasher tablets are quite effective if you want to remove baked-on gunk from oven doors, remove built-up dirt from the inside of the washing machine or have sparkling clean toilets.

Who knew?

As great as YouTube is, there are still fabulous tips our parents and grandparents taught us back in the day.

My grandmother taught me that baking soda has universal uses. When my eldest son was an infant, he suffered from colic. Grandma Marguerite was visiting one afternoon and noticed his distress.

She told me to get a teaspoon, a small glass of water and the baking soda. She mixed some baking soda in the water and gave the baby a few teaspoons of the mixture. Nick must’ve burped for a full minute. After that, the baby was relieved, calm and happy.

My Lebanese grandmother was thrifty. She washed out plastic bags and used those to store extra raw hamburger meat.

She taught us to wash the rice before cooking to remove some of the starch and to use our hands to mix salads to evenly distribute the salad dressing. No need for specialty spoons and forks.

My Aunt Bev wasn’t a fan of cooking, but she had a few tips she passed on. One was to fill the sink with hot, soapy water before I started cooking. Whenever I used a measuring cup, spoon or plate, drop it in the water to make clean-up quicker and easier.

Aunt Bev was also a master shopper, and she taught me how to spot name-brand labels in thrift store clothing.

Our mom taught us how to take leftovers and items in the pantry and create a meal in less than 20 minutes. The writers of “Stone Soup” were amateurs compared to our mom.

My dad taught us that black electrical tape can fix anything. Brother Jeff remembers Dad “repaired” a rip in our tan ottoman with the black tape and “fixed” the ceiling fan with the black tape but left the wires wrapped in tape dangling out of the fan.

Dad’s best use for black electrical tape was to keep his toupee on when he ran out of toupee double-sided tape.

You’ll never see that trick on YouTube.

These new cleaning hacks are great, but nothing beats old-fashioned wisdom.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

There are days when I forget I’m old enough to collect Social Security. Then there are days when I feel like putting on some go-go boots and rocking out to Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Recently, I found an old metal box I’d purchased when I was a young teen. The box locked, perfect for an oldest sister with curious younger brothers and sisters.

I’d decorated the outside of the box with the names of my favorite recording artists – The Monkees, Dave Clark Five, Davey Jones and Lesley Gore.

Back then, we’d save our money and buy 45-rpm records. You had to have a yellow plastic clip in the middle if you wanted to play the record on a stereo, and those were as valuable as money.

We’d write our favorite stars’ names on our notebooks and decorate our rooms with their posters. My youngest sister and her best friend loved Donny Osmond, and my younger sister thought Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler were the bomb.

There were the movie and television stars we dreamed about – Michael Landon, Robert Redford, David Cassidy, John Travolta and Will Smith are just a few of the heartthrobs from back then.

I thought about those times when our 14-year-old granddaughter checked her phone and noticed a new episode of her favorite show was being released that day.  When she screamed, I thought something was wrong. But when her younger sister joined in, I realized those were yelps of joy.

The old fogey in me wondered why they were so excited about something on television, a streaming service these days. Then I remembered and thought about two of my favorites on the screen, The Beatles and Tom Jones.

The Beatles surfaced on the music screen when I was in elementary school. When their movie “A Hard Day’s Night” came out, we couldn’t wait to see it.

The movie theater was packed when we finally got tickets. I didn’t hear one word in the movie because girls were screaming the entire time.

I went home angry because I’d paid to see a movie and didn’t hear any of the dialogue or songs.

A few years later, I became a huge Tom Jones fan. My siblings were forbidden from talking during the last 10 minutes of his “This is Tom Jones” show because that’s when the man would come out and perform.

Jones wore a tuxedo better than anyone else, including James Bond. He’d smile, the women would scream. He’d dance a little, and they’d scream louder. Then he’d go over to the audience and start kissing the women. At that point, I was screaming at home.

Literally.

My siblings thought I was crazy, and I was – for Tom Jones.

Now, I cringe at the memory.

I’m glad my granddaughters reminded me what it was like to be young, excited about seeing a favorite movie star on the big screen or a singer on stage.

They reminded me of how important pop-culture is in our teenage years. Most of us cried when we heard The Beatles were breaking up and then again when Diana Ross left The Supremes.

I thought about the afternoon I played The Beatles’ White Album backwards to hear “Paul is dead” for myself and the hours my friends and I spent figuring out the meaning of “American Pie.”

Pop-culture connect us and bridges the years.

On a recent car ride with some of my grandchildren, I played “Bad Moon Rising” and “My Girl,” and they loved the songs.

Later, six of us were singing every word to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” complete with air guitar during the instrumental hard-rock part of the song.

All of us have our music and big-screen legends. Some of those might be Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Freddy Mercury or even an anime character.

Mine is that sexy singer from the 1970’s, Tom Jones.

   This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I watched as my 10-year-old grandson silently sketched at the kitchen table. He was sitting in front of a laptop on a Zoom call with my brother, his pens and sketch pad in front of him.

We’d set up the call so Jeff, an extremely talented artist, could show James some drawing techniques.

After 20 minutes of quiet, I heard them talking, comparing what they’d drawn. James asked intelligent questions about Jeff’s shading and poses, and Jeff asked the same questions of James.

The huge smile on James’ face told me the session was a success. Grateful doesn’t come close to describing how I feel about my brother. He graciously took a few hours out of his weekend sharing his talents with a youngster eager to learn.

Days later, I walked into my Mom’s kitchen and saw my nephew, Randall, at the stove with our youngest granddaughter. Randall works in the restaurant business in Virginia and has a dream of one day opening a co-op restaurant.

But today, he was showing Kat how to cook pasta, complete with an over-the-top Italian accent. They were laughing and chatting non-stop about cooking, vegetables and why the sky is blue.

After we got home, I asked my granddaughter to help with the pasta as she’d learned how to cook from a real chef.

She jumped right in, and we sent Randall a video of her at the stove, stirrer in hand, telling him how to cook the pasta, just as he’d done, accent and all.

Randall was delighted and said he’d like to set up more sessions with Kat so he could show her a few more cooking tips.

When adults pass on their knowledge of what they love doing, they aren’t aware of how impactful those innocent, often quick, lessons become to someone else.

Katherine knows the basics of sewing because her grandmother, Nonie, taught her, and she created some cute costumes for her brothers one afternoon.

Watching her, I thought about my grandmother, Marguerite, who taught me the basics of sewing.

She taught me how to make darts, the right way to trim seams, how to put in a zipper and how to hand sew buttonholes and a hem.

My Aunt Bev taught me how to knit. She was patient and made sure I understood the difference between knitting and purling before she let me create on my own.

Years later, I shared what Aunt Bev taught me with my two cousins, Lindsay and Casey, and Lindsay’s knitted a dozen slippers for those in need.

My mom, without making a big deal out of what she says, shows all of us how to be a fair and loving grandmother. Because of her, her children know how to transform random items in the refrigerator and pantry into a feast.

My dad taught me how to drive, and I think of him every time I’m navigating the interstate or trying to parallel park. He also taught us that a hammer, duct tape and black electrical tape can fix anything. You know what? They usually can.

Parents teach their children basic life skills, and they’re never taught in a formal setting. Those lessons are casually passed on in day-to-day living sessions.

Teens learn how to check the oil in their car or fix the chain on their bicycle in an easily forgotten summer afternoon, but those are skills we need.

Children learn to play during silly times with grown-ups. They learn how to make a bed, bake a cake, fold a fitted sheet and tie a tie as part of growing up.

Consider sharing what you know with a younger family member. It might not seem like a big deal that you know how to cast a fishing line, bake cookies or build a fire.

To the child learning about life, those moments are golden.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

He leans back in his creaky brown chair, pops open the top on a Diet Coke and looks around his cluttered office.

Bob Haenel, managing editor for the Fort Bend Herald, knows there’s at least a hundred unanswered emails in his box, a dozen voice messages blinking on the phone and an overflowing in-box on the corner of his desk.

Instead, he finds himself watching the activity in the newsroom right outside his door. Reporters are sitting at their desks, tapping out stories on their computers, interviewing softball coaches or hunched over a computer keyboard, looking for that just-right lead for a weekend feature story.

In his 35 years as a writer, reporter and editor, Haenel, 50, has seen and heard it all. He started out in 1979 as a sports editor for the Herald-Coaster, subsequently moved to the news side and was named news director in 1981.

A year later, he moved to The Katy Times but came back to The Mirror, a Fort Bend County newspaper, in 1983 as their editor and publisher. Four years later, he was named the managing editor of The Herald-Coaster and is currently the paper’s executive managing editor.

Unlike the bigwigs at major publications, Haenel prefers to actively know the community and the people who live and work there. He’s on a first-name basis with the president of the chamber of commerce as well as the white-gloved ladies in the garden clubs.

In seconds, he can trace the lineage of the “Old 300” families back to the Stephen F. Austin days, and he knows to count the vowels in the Czech names for the Around the Bends before publishing the paper.

“Birthday call,” yells out the receptionist at the front desk. Haenel picks up the phone receiver and writes down the information, knowing for some people, seeing their child’s name in the “Happy Birthday” column will be the highlight of their day.

He also knows getting everyone’s name spelled correctly in an obituary is right up there with not misspelling the local superintendent’s name on the front page. An obituary, Haenel tells his staffers, might be the only time a person is mentioned in the local paper, and the writers better get it right.

One of his young reporters tentatively knocks on his door, and Haenel waves him in, despite the incessantly blinking light on his telephone. An elderly woman claims drug trafficking on her street is rampant, but the police can’t seem to catch the dealers.

This woman wants the newspaper to write about the crimes, but the reporter isn’t sure if the story is worth following.

Haenel leans forward, put his elbows on his knees, and looks at this fresh-out-of-college writer.

“If we’re not there for people, who will be?” he says, the challenge evident in his voice. “Our job is to look out for the little guy and to give him a voice. Don’t forget that’s the reason you’re here. Call her back and stay over there all day if you have to, but make sure we report what’s going on in our own back yard.”

Journalism schools teach young writers the rules about style, formatting and inverted pyramids, but they can’t teach what Haenel instinctively possesses — an unerringly correct moral compass and a passion to uncover misdeeds and point out inequities in society.

As the reporter leaves his office, Haenel notices a sea of blue hats standing at his door. He’d forgotten it was time for the weekly Cub Scout tour through the office.

Haenel loves accompanying these youngsters as they visit the press room, their eyes wide at the giant machines that churn out newspapers around the clock. Haenel’s fingers are often stained with blank ink, and the cuffs on his well-worn beige sweater are permanently gray, the result of brushing against fresh newsprint for the past three decades.

Walking into the newsroom, Haenel stops and offers encouragement to a struggling reporter, reminds another writer to find out if there’s adequate drinking water for people living in the colonias and sits to chat with the sports editor about whether or not this year’s Little Leaguers can swing their way to Williamsport.

Back in his office, Haenel pops open his fourth Diet Coke of the day and settles down in front of his computer. He’s spent many Friday nights in that cramped office on Fourth Street, battling ornery computers, reluctant witnesses to wrong-doings and, once, writing by candle-light on battery-operated laptops when an electrical storm blew out the power.

Although the pace in a newsroom is frenetic, Haenel is the calm in the storm. His reporters take their cue from the boss, and because he encourages, consoles and occasionally scolds, his staff gives 100 percent. His belief in their ability allows them to grow as reporters and writers.

Haenel, however, is unaware how much influence he has over so many people. Instead, he looks around his office again, the back credenza stacked high with old photographs and decades-old phone books, and leans back in the chair.

One of these days, he thinks, I’ll get around to clearing off that desk, write a novel and open that hot dog stand. Until then, there are stories to edit, monthly publications to review and emails to answer.

“Birthday call,” comes Annie’s voice again.

Haenel takes another sip of his Diet Coke and picks up the call. Clutter can keep, he figures. People, well, that’s a different matter.

“Hi there,” he says, cradling the receiver comfortably under his cheek. “Now how can I help you?”

 

This feature was originally written when Bob Haenel retired as the managing editor of The Fort Bend Herald. 

My husband was at a meeting last night, so I volunteered to take the dog on her nightly walkabout. I was talking to my mom on the phone when I grabbed the leash and a flashlight.

The walk was quick since it was so cold. When I headed up the driveway, I started rummaging around in my pocket for my house keys.

The only thing I found was a crumpled gum wrapper.

Then I felt around my neck for the lanyard that has a house key on it.

Nothing.

Because I wasn’t paying attention, I’d forgotten to put the key in my pocket or around my neck.

I remembered we had a key hidden outside, so I used the flashlight to look for the container. It wasn’t in the two spots I remembered, so I texted my husband. He reminded me we’d moved the hidden key last year, and he stayed on the line while I searched.

Piles of mulch had covered the places where he told me to look, and I came up empty handed. Luckily, his meeting was minutes from the house, so he said he’d come home and let me in.

As the dog and I waited in the driveway, I mentally slapped myself on the forehead. Forgetting the key – what a stupid thing to do. Then I started listing all the stupid things I’ve done, going back to high school.

I was painting a blue stripe in my bedroom, holding a can of blue enamel paint in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.

I was standing on an old wooden folding chair and when I moved to reach a corner, the chair collapsed and I spilled the entire can of blue paint all over the carpet.

A few weeks ago, I turned the water on to fill up the kitchen sink. While the water was running, I decided to put some clothes away.

While in our room, I made the bed, totally forgetting the running water. I got back to the kitchen just as the water was reaching the top of the sink.

I did the same thing with the bathtub last year.

Stupid mistakes.

Then again, aren’t all mistakes stupid? That’s why they’re called mistakes, because it’s when something goes wrong that was unexpected.

Still, I beat myself up when I do something dumb, vowing I’ll never make that mistake again. I’ve been successful a few times.

Before keyless entries into vehicles, I used to keep a spare key in a magnetic box under the back bumper of my car. I had another key in my jewelry box and, for good measure, I gave another key to my neighbor.

I never wanted to find myself stranded in a parking lot again with two screaming toddlers and a basket full of groceries while waiting for someone to let me into my mini-van.

There’s a small pink note taped to the dashboard of my car with one word on it – wallet. That’s because I’ve forgotten my wallet more than once and had to come back home for it, leaving my groceries at the checkout.

I’ve gone the whole day with my shirt on backwards and, more than once, have worn my shirt inside out.

I’ve worn a black shoe and a brown shoe because I got dressed in the dark. If they were the same style, I could dismiss the stupid mistake. However, they were totally different styles and I didn’t notice what I’d done until I got to work.

First thing tomorrow, I’m headed to the hardware store to have another spare house key made. Experience tells me this won’t be the last time I’ll lock myself out of the house.

We stupid people know our limitations.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.