I looked at the mail and my heart sank.

A jury summons addressed to me.

My first words were not “oh joy.” 
Every time I looked at that letter, I’d grit my teeth in frustration.

I was to report to the Fort Bend County Courthouse at 12:30 p.m.; and as I maneuvered down Golfview, which is a construction nightmare, I became even more aggravated.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Fort Bend County Justice Center, though, and was quite impressed. The graceful building fronts a spacious parking area and the entrance is grand and modern.

The line to get into the building never slowed, thanks to deputies who politely moved us along to the jury waiting area.
I expected to wait in a cramped room with metal folding chairs, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a comfortable waiting area with plenty of padded chairs.
Playing on a big television screen was a video of what to expect from jury duty. The film featured judges and lawyers who explained most of the questions jurors might have. The room filled quickly, and soon the judge came in and asked anyone who couldn’t serve to see him.
After the last person had their excuse signed, the judge thanked everyone for their time. An easy-going clerk explained the afternoon’s process to us, traded a few jokes and made the waiting time pass quickly.

Soon a deputy began calling names with instructions to line up in the waiting area. I think everyone in that room was silently praying “please don’t call my name.”

Then my name was called, so I sighed, picked up my purse and got in the line. When we entered a courtroom, five well-dressed people were silently facing us – two prosecutors and two attorneys flanking a nervous young man.

No one spoke a word as we took our seats and listened to another set of instructions from the judge. As the attorneys visually sized us up, I glanced at the people sitting around me. They came from all walks of life – young, old, middle-aged – and all had a similar look of trepidation on their faces.

The prosecutors went first, showing us a PowerPoint to explain voire dire, the process by which jurors are selected. People were encouraged to speak freely to questions I’m sure had been carefully chosen.

Then the defense team took the podium, asking if we could honestly say the person at the defendant’s table was innocent until proven guilty. I looked at that man and wondered what he was thinking.
He was putting his fate in the hands of six people he’d never met before, and I realized it was true what the first judge had told us – jury duty is not a chore to be taken lightly.
A juror decides whether or not a person goes to jail that day or walks out into the sunshine a free man or woman. At that moment, I realized the seriousness of what we’d been asked to do.
Later that afternoon while heading back to my car, I noticed a walking path to a covered swing. I wondered if jurors who are charged with determining the fate of defendants sit there and mentally prepare for what they’re being asked to do.

After what I’d heard that afternoon, I believed the six strangers I saw in that courtroom would come together as a team and justice would be served.

 A word to the wise:  Do not wear a T-shirt, jeans or a warm-up suit to serve as a juror. Give the court the honor and respect she, and the people seeking justice in her courtroom, deserves.  

 

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Nothing gets our family dog more excited than seeing us take the leash from the top shelf of the front closet. She knows that means it’s walking time and she’s going out.
Most of the time, walking Channell is my husband’s job because he likes walking, he’s in better shape than I am and he’ll take the dog out when the weather’s hot, cold, rainy or mild.

  When the hubby’s not home, walking the dog falls to me, and I’ll admit to being a poor substitute because I won’t go if it’s too hot, too cold or raining.
Also our walks aren’t nearly as long as when Channell goes with the man, but our dog seems just as excited to head out with me as she does with him.

  Channell, to her credit, does not call me a slacker.

  The adventure starts with trying to clip her leash to her collar. Even though Channell knows the drill, it’s sometimes hard to attach the leash because she’s so excited.
But she’s a smart dog, so when I stamp my foot and say “we’re not going,” she lays down and lets me hook her up.

  Heading out the door, I know to hang on to the leash with all my might. She’s revved up like a tornado when she sees the road stretching out before her. But first, we have to stop at the end of the driveway so she can smell the ground around the mailbox.

  I know she’s checking out other dogs who’ve marked their territory, so I let her take her time. Then we’re off down the street. The next-door dog fiercely guards his territory and barks ferociously the whole time we’re in front of his house.

  Channell ignores him and keeps her eyes out for her sworn mortal enemy, the squirrel. Because there’s pecan trees along our route, she knows there will be aggravated squirrels chattering at us from the safety of the high branches.

  After we pass those pecan trees, I start to relax and enjoy the nightly stroll.
Unless I think I hear a bat overhead, the mosquitoes are biting or it’s cold. Then all I do is complain to Channell about how much I hate the cold, how much I hate bugs and if a bat gets in my hair, I’m dropping the leash and running for cover.

  Channell does not tell me to stop being a baby.

  What she does quite well, though, is listen. A few months ago, a good friend suggested I try positive self talk. He said that instead of criticizing myself, I should tell myself nice things. I should take advantage of walking the dog to practice positive self talk, he advised.

  So one night, I tried it out with Channell as my sounding board.

  She listened to my entire soliloquy without interrupting, unless you count stopping to sniff an ant pile or marking a lone daisy interrupting.
On our walks, Channell’s helped me through a variety of problems and issues. Sometimes her advice is to nod her head in agreement, other times to ignore my really mean remarks, and sometimes to simply listen.

  At the end of the walk, Channell knows which one’s our driveway and she always turns in, leading me home. She walks a lot slower back up the driveway than she did 20 minutes earlier, but her tail is wagging. I know I feel better for having gotten what’s bothering me off my chest.

  Channell does not tell me “I told you so.”

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

We were at a restaurant recently, and there were two families having dinner, as different as night and day.

At one, the mother was yakking away on her cell phone. The teenage boy and girl were totally immersed in their cell phones. The father was eating in silence, the lonely look on his face telling a sad story.

At another table, a mom and dad were there with three teenagers, and they were engaged in a lively conversation the whole time. There was laughing and talking and it seemed obvious they were comfortable and happy sharing food and conversation.

I thought about dinner time when I was their age and the one unbreakable rule – you did not miss Sunday dinner with the family. All nine of us went to Sunday morning Mass together, and then came home for roast, rice, mashed potatoes, salad, rolls and gravy.

Mom insisted we use a tablecloth and the best dinner plates. Somebody always spilled their Kool-Aid, but Mom wanted us to understand that dinners together were important, no matter how many times she had to wash that white tablecloth.

Dinner lasted a long time because we Heberts are extroverts, and we talked about all kinds of things. My dad had definite opinions about the government and how we should succeed in life.

As we got older and braver, we’d challenge his beliefs so dinners were always lively and cemented us as a family.

 

Modern Family Dinners

I recently conducted an informal survey with about 60 teenagers, asking about dinner time at their homes, and the results were sad. Most said they either ate in their rooms alone or they ate in front of the television.

For those who ate together as a family, they said dinner time was when they felt safe to talk about their day. As a family, they shared their achievements, disappointments, funny moments and the aggravating events. They said that hour was the highlight of their day.
It didn’t matter that their definition of family wasn’t what’s portrayed in “Family Circle” magazine. For some, family meant a single mom or single dad. For others, it was two parents and younger siblings who couldn’t yet join in the conversation, but they were learning by example how families connect.
Because technology runs our lives, we’re losing out that the most important people we should be communicating with are the people in our families and those whom we break bread or share take-out fried chicken.
So often, I see people in restaurants on their cell phones, ignoring the people at their table. Worse is when everybody’s on their cells, mistakenly believing that what’s out there in cyberspace is more important than the people at the table they chose to spend time with.
The solution’s simple:  put away the cell phones. If you’re paranoid about missing an emergency call, assign different ring tones to your loved ones, put the cell in your pocket and only answer a call from them.
Stop texting during dinner and insist your children follow the same rule. If you’re that addicted to your cell phone and can’t break away from technology for 20 minutes, you’ve got more troubles than we can address here.
Start talking face to face. If your teenager has his or her face glued to that cell phone, they are not learning the fine art of face-to-face conversation. It’s your job to teach them.

Insist your family sit down for meals together and form bonds that will last a lifetime. They do that when they share the blessing, pass the bread and find acceptance at the family dinner table.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

When I was 18 years old, my dad entrusted my younger brother and me with the job of driving our family home to Louisiana from New York State. We’d been visiting my grandparents, but as we were packing up the back of the covered truck, I spotted two bulging cardboard boxes by the back bumper.  

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“Rocks,” my mother said.

“We’re taking two boxes of rocks back home? For what?” I wanted to know.

“To remind me of home,” my mom said.

That made no sense to me. I didn’t understand why we had to drag 75 pounds of rocks over a thousand miles.

That is until I drove 50 miles to buy three little rocks to go in our yard.

Rocks have played a part in our family for a long time. Not just from my mother, but two of my brothers are geologists. They’re always stopping to look at rocks on the side of the road, and all rock piles are an adventure.

When our sons were young, they saw some of the rocks my brothers had collected and begged Santa for a rock polishing machine.

Santa obliged.

What Santa didn’t know was that it takes hours to polish a few rocks. He also didn’t know a rock polishing machine is louder than a jackhammer pounding away on concrete.

We ended up putting the rock polishing machine in the garage but I could hear that machine clanking and banging inside the house.

But when the rocks came out of the polisher, they were stunning.

Although I’d never admit this to my mother, for the past few years, I’ve grown increasingly fascinated by rocks. Whenever we go to a park or creek, I’m always on the lookout for geodes – rocks that are bumpy and coarse on the outside.

It’s easy to walk right by a geode because they’re plain and unattractive. But when you break one open and look inside, it’s like gazing into a crystal palace of purples and silvers.

People unfamiliar with geodes are always surprised when they see the beauty inside, and I like to think that people are the same – often rough on the inside yet beautiful on the inside.

I thought about the rocks I love one afternoon when my husband and I decided to update a small, round flower bed in the back yard. I could envision a few small boulders in the center, surrounded by flowers.  How hard, I thought, could it be to find those rocks?

It was about as hard as, well, a rock.

I love to shop locally, but the nurseries here said they didn’t carry what I wanted. One nice sales person told me to look for a rock yard and I found Apex Stone near Sealy.

When I walked out the showroom’s back door, I couldn’t believe the acres of rocks, granite slabs, pebbles, stones and boulders stretching out in front of me.

I was in heaven.

I took my time marveling at all the different shapes of rocks, examining the different colors in the dozens of varieties of rocks.

Thanks to my mom and my brothers, I knew to look past the rough exterior and to instead search for veins of silver, flecks of sparkling granite and interesting color curves.

An hour later, I gave the cashier $2 for my rocks, came home and arranged them in our flower bed. The flowers I’ll plant there will add color but the real beauty, for those who know where to look, is hidden in those three simple rocks.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

I overheard two mothers talking the other day. One was aggravated with her daughter’s teacher. It seems the mom had called her daughter while the girl was in class to tell her she was picking her up after school.

The teacher made the girl put the cell phone away, angry the student was answering her phone during class time. The mother was angry with the teacher for not understanding she needed to tell her daughter something right then and there.

As a teacher, I was furious.

As an observer of human behavior, I was saddened but not surprised.

Because I was at a friend’s house, I didn’t jump into the conversation. If I had, my reply would’ve been that her daughter is in school to learn, not take mom’s phone call.

I also would’ve reminded this mother that the phone call not only interrupted her daughter’s learning, the call disturbed the teacher and other students in the class.

And for what? Because this mother believed her needs outweighed the needs of everyone else.

Our society has a bad habit of thinking about ourselves before we think about others. What we want is much more important than what anyone else might want or need.

We mostly put teenagers in this category. We have a stereotype of a teenager as a self-centered boor, mindlessly texting while walking in the mall, oblivious to everything around them.

But adults are just as attached to their cell phones as the younger generation. In meetings, employees think nothing of answering text messages or checking their email while someone else is talking or presenting.

At the park, I see mothers pushing their children on the swings with one hand while the other is holding a cell phone. Their child is performing daredevil acts on the monkey bars; and because mom is so engrossed in her cell phone, she misses the whole show.

She is, however, reviewing the latest texts from her friends and her child has to deal with an adult who’s there in person but not there in mind. No more chatting with other parents in the park – the cell phone has become the new friend.

Couples in restaurants are on their phones instead of talking to each other. Worse is when everybody sits quietly at the dinner table, intent on their cell phone, and not talking with each other.

In the grocery store line, people no longer slyly scan “The National Enquirer” covers or talk to the person behind them in line. They’re too busy texting, talking on their phone or reading the latest Yahoo headlines on their cell phones.

In their quest to stay connected, they’ve forgotten the importance of human contact. People are much more fascinating to watch than anything on a cell phone and you never know what you might learn from having an actual conversation with another person, face to face.

But first, you have to put away the cell phone. Talk to somebody.

Put the cell phone away when you’re at the park. Your child will never be this age again. Savor the moments.

Turn off the phone when you’re in a meeting and give your attention to your colleague. He or she will remember the respect you showed them.

And moms, quit expecting your child to answer your phone calls and texts when they’re in class. Show them you value education.

And don’t get mad at the teacher for doing what he or she is there to do – provide your child with an education.

Teachers can do that if your self-centered wants and demands don’t get in the way.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

“Hi this is Diane. I’m not in at the moment, but leave a message at the beep.”

That’s the message my sister has on her cell phone, and it’s the only way I’ve heard her voice for the past two months. She’s busy with meetings, I’m usually at school and it seems our schedules seldom mesh.

So I’ve taken up having a relationship with her phone.

Before you laugh, consider what a cell phone’s answering service offers you.

First, it listens to every word you say. And doesn’t interrupt. Just patiently waits for you to finish saying everything you want to say.

When’s the last time you had a conversation with a human like that?

Secondly, the answering function doesn’t remind you of all the bad mistakes you made in your life. We’ve all had those conversations with friends…

“I bought a new sweater today.”

“You didn’t get a yellow one. You know yellow looks awful on you.”

Silence.

“You bought the yellow one, didn’t you,” says your friend while you shove another piece of candy into your mouth and look for the bag of Doritos hiding on the top shelf of the pantry.

But the answering machine conversation is quite different.

“I bought a new sweater today. It’s yellow. I know that color looks awful on me, but I think I can wear this particular shade of yellow and, best of all, it was on sale. If you think that’s a good idea, give me a signal.”

At that moment, the end-of-message beep comes on and you rejoice – someone agrees that the on-sale, puke-lemon yellow sweater is a good idea.

Sometimes I find myself hoping the person I’m calling doesn’t answer the phone, especially when I have bad news, want to complain or am in a rotten mood.

When it’s a friend, they either set you straight or try and talk you out of the bad mood. But, let’s face it, sometimes you want to just vent.

But when that nasty mood strikes, I don’t call Diane’s cell phone. We have too good a relationship to ruin it with a petty rant about how tight my pants are getting as I sip on a chocolate malt, complete with whipped cream and a cherry on the top.

So I dial my own cell phone and wait for the inevitable green light: “Leave a message at the beep.”

“Hello,  cell phone, I just had to get this off my chest. I know you’re going to think I’m an awful person but I just had to vent.”

And with that, I go on for as long as it takes to feel vindicated and then end the call, feeling much better.  Later I replay the message, chagrined at how dumb I sound and quietly delete the message.

No one hurt and, better yet, nobody knows.

“Hi, this is Diane. I’m not in at the moment but leave a message at the beep.”

“Hi Diane’s cell phone. I’m driving home, looking at the sunset and thinking about our Dad. When you see Diane, ask her if she remembers how Dad would come home late at night and bring us comic books?

“See if she remembers when he’d stop the car on the railroad tracks and open the door. He said it was to let the train through, even though there wasn’t a train in sight. We’d yell for him to get us off the tracks and he’d just laugh.

“Cell phone, you don’t have that memory but it feels good to share missing Dad with somebody who won’t tell me I’m being silly. Thanks for being there and for listening.”

“Beep. Message recorded.”

And remembered.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The sign by the side of the road was simple– sign up now for Little League Baseball. I smiled just seeing the sign, even though my boys finished baseball games a long time ago.

For at least 10 years, we rode around with lawn chairs in the back of the van and we ate many a meal at the ballpark, watching practices or waiting for games to start. I miss those days, but I learned a lot through my child’s baseball teams.

Not all coaches are fair. My experience with Little League coaches is 50/50. Half are there because they genuinely love the game and want to pass that enthusiasm and knowledge on to their son or daughter.

There’s a small minority who are there for the wrong reasons – they believe their child is the next Craig Biggio and other players should stay out of their superstar’s way.

They recruit only the kids they think are the best, and they want to win at all costs. Doesn’t matter if a child never gets to play as long as the team wins. As bad as this style of coaching is, what’s worse are the parents who let these bullies get away with that type of bad behavior.

So, parents, choose your coach well because their influence over your child will last a lot longer than the cleats.  

Organized sports are good. And bad. Nothing beats a sand-lot or school-yard Saturday afternoon baseball game where the same kids get together week after week to play ball. But those days are long gone now that our catch phrases are “stranger-danger” and “no trespassing.”

Organized sports have stepped in to allow kids a safe place to play sports, learn the rules and meet other kids. If the rules stayed like that, we’d all be better off.

Instead, we become slaves to the rules and never question why a simple game of hit the ball, catch the ball and throw the ball has more rules and regulations than the federal government.

What we need to do is keep organized sports organized and not allow them to morph into a totalitarian state. See “not all coaches are fair” above.

Teams are just for the kids. As much fun as my sons had playing baseball, I think I had more fun in the stands.  When you’re parked on a wooden bench for three hours twice a week, you make friends.

We laughed in the stands, cheered each others’ children on in the stands, weathered the cold, wind, heat and rain in the stands and, along the way, saw the best and the worst of each other and still accepted each other.

That’s because we understood that when our child is involved, our hearts often overrule common sense. And we forgave even the most hot-headed parent in the stands. Because we knew that could be us one of these days, and we hoped others would be as forgiving as we were that evening.

Patience.  When there’s 15 kids on a team, it takes a while for your child to get up to bat. We had to act as if it wasn’t a big deal if the game ended right before our child’s turn.

We learned patience when the bases were loaded and our kid was at the plate with two strikes and three balls. Bleacher parents know there’s always another turn at bat and always the possibility of an over-the-fence home run.

They also know nothing beats having somebody at the gate at the end of the game wearing a big smile, proud no matter what the scoreboard says.

These are just a few of the lessons I’ve learned through Little League. Life on the other side of the first-base line is where you can always learn a few more life lessons.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

It was just a tickle really, nothing to be concerned about. Until that slight tickle turned into a fire-breathing dragon, lurking in the back of my throat, an aggravation that in two days completely destroyed my voice. The result? Laryngitis.

For someone who’s a talker, the diagnosis was like telling a fish it could no longer swim.

Since I was a young girl, I’ve been a talker. My mom loves to tell the story of how she arrived at her grandparents house late one night, and I tap danced and sang for 30 minutes on top of a closed suitcase.

Never mind that my parents thought a 3-year-old could handle a full bottle of Coca-Cola after dinner.  I was forever dubbed a talking machine by my great-grandfather but the moniker’s almost a badge of honor because I come from a long line of talkers.

The only strong silent type in the entire Hebert family is my cousin Mike, and he’s one of 25 first cousins I have. The rest of the Hebert clan will sit and talk about nothing, everything and all points in between until the beer and crawfish run out.

But even though I love to talk, I also love to listen.  As a young girl, I loved snuggling up to my grandmother while she spun outrageous stories about the latest gossip in the family. Never mind that I was only 7 years old – I was an adoring audience and she was the best story teller in town.

My grandfather’s stories were told as long fables resembling a slow-moving stream – always moving with a purpose but in no hurry to arrive at the end. His stories are the ones I remember word for word these many years later.

I thought about the great storytellers I’ve known these past couple of days when I’ve only been able to listen, not put in my two cents’ worth.

Yesterday, I was checking out of the grocery store, and the clerk asked me a question. I had to smile, shrug my shoulders and point to my throat. I mouthed “laryngitis,” and she smiled and did the talking for the both of us.

I had the feeling that perhaps a great bit of her time was spent listening to people whine about high prices, questioning if she scanned in their coupons or talking to her like she’s an indentured servant.

Because I couldn’t talk back, she was free to chat about anything she wanted and I couldn’t say a word. It was one of the nicest one-way conversations I’ve ever had and I’ll bet she thought the same thing.

Today, I overheard teenagers talking about a problem, and instead of interrupting with a grown-up solution, I listened as they rationally reasoned their way out of the situation.

Even when I was by myself, not having a voice brought unforeseen benefits. I love to sing along with the CD player, but because I have no voice, I was able to hear beautiful music without my off-key warbling drowning the artists out.

I’d forgotten how clear John Denver’s voice was or how Celine Dion perfectly hits those high notes. Hearing them again without my accompaniment was pretty nice.

There were a few idiots on the road coming home this afternoon. Normally I’m yelling at them from the sound-proof comfort of my car, listing all their mental failings and their inability to maneuver a vehicle, but today, I couldn’t yell at all. When I pulled into my driveway, I wasn’t as aggravated as I am most days.

Maybe keeping my mouth shut isn’t such a bad idea.

 This column was originally published in the Fort Bend Herald.

After days of gloomy, rainy weather, the sun came out over the weekend, reminding me how much I’d missed a baby-blue sky and the warmth of the sun.

The grandchildren immediately headed outside after arriving, and my eldest noticed there were still pecans on the ground. We have a native pecan tree in the yard, and those limbs have put out quite a bounty this year.

Last year, we sold the pecans she picked to the Bailey Brothers in Fulshear, and Kylie enjoyed receiving money she earned through hard work.

Noticing all the pecans on the ground yesterday, she saw dollar signs again and we all got to work. We put a big plastic bucket near the tree and 3-year-old James and 2-year-old Katherine helped their big sister drop small pecans in the bucket.

While we worked, we talked about our favorite pecan treats – pecan pie, pecan cookies and pecans sprinkled on ice cream.

I’m not a farmer, but I wondered if the pecans on the ground were still good after all the rain we’d had. So I suggested we open a few.

Kylie resisted, as every pecan out of the bucket was less money in her pocket, but she agreed after I told her we might be picking up bad pecans and all that work would be for nothing.

I remembered how my family used to crack pecans, and I grabbed a couple of small hammers out of the kitchen junk drawer. With a gentle tap, tap, tap, we opened a few, and they were perfect.

As we cracked the shells and pulled out honey-colored pecan pieces, I thought about the satisfaction that comes from harvesting and then eating something that grows in your own back yard. It’s sad so few children these days have the opportunity to grow their own vegetables or eat the fruit from something they’ve picked with their own hands.

I remember the truck garden we had in our back yard one year. My dad challenged each of his seven children with having their own row to plant, tend and harvest. My brother, Joey, won the contest, but we all enjoyed vegetables from that little backyard plat and learned we could grow what we wanted to eat.

Last year, my son and his family made over two dozen jars of jam from blackberries they picked growing behind where they were living. Their children loved searching in the bushes for blackberries, learning valuable lessons about wearing rain boots and looking out for critters lurking in the leaves and branches.

They were so proud when they presented me with their jars of jam, and that only comes from, literally, the fruits of one’s labors.

My grandchildren love visiting nearby Blessington Farms in Simonton. Owners Lynne and Dave Johnson live in Fulshear but drew upon their memories of farming in Iowa to turn some acreage into a delightful destination spot for children and adults alike.

Visitors get a bucket when they arrive and can pick their own blueberries and strawberries right off the vine.

Recently added is a catch-and-release fishing pond where children can experience the fun of catching a fish, getting their picture taken and then watching the fish swim away to be caught again another day.

Year round, children can enjoy old-fashioned activities such as the hay maze, giant slides and a petting zoo with barnyard animals. For youngsters wondering what a real farm’s like, nothing beats holding a gentle hen as she clucks on your lap or listening to a rooster announce his presence.

Blessington Farms’ website has up-to-date information about hours of operation, and, weather permitting, plans are to open the gates this Saturday. Note they’re closed on Sundays.

There’s a great lesson to be learned when one harvests nature’s bounty and there’s no greater feeling of satisfaction than seeing a bucket filled with blueberries, strawberries or native pecans that you picked with your own hands.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.