At my age, there are lots of things I wish. That I could read without glasses, the pants in my closet would still fit and I could walk up a flight of stairs and not feel like I was on fire by the time I got to the next floor.

More than anything, I wish I could tell new moms and dads what makes a good parent. The answer is – I don’t know.

Books and the internet are filled with advice, most of which sound great in theory but aren’t practical in real life.

Be patient, they recommend. That’s all fine and good until you realize children have no sense of time or urgency and you’re running late.

You can be hurrying out the door, and they think nothing of stopping to watch ants crawl by on the sidewalk.

Be fair, they recommend. That is impossible if you have more than one child. One of them will always think they’re getting cheated.

My neighbor’s two daughters were arguing over a stick – yes a stick – and each one claimed the stick belonged to them.

My neighbor had a solution – he broke the stick in half so each one would have a stick. One child was content, but the other sobbed because she had a broken stick.

Be calm, they recommend. Parents can usually keep their cool. However, when your toddler is running down the driveway as fast as they can, using a calm voice does not work.

Be wise, they recommend. That’s easy when they’re young. Be kind, eat your veggies, and brush your teeth.

Giving wise advice to teenagers is tough. The advice our parents and grandparents dispensed still applies – don’t talk to strangers and save money.

But today’s parents have to know what to say when a teenager is visiting online sites they’re not supposed to see and to not trust anyone because they could be a predator.

Be firm, experts recommend. But different situations and personalities call for different parenting techniques.

Some children are instantly sorry if they hit their brother or sister and will apologize. Others would rather rot in their rooms before admitting they did anything wrong.

Be encouraging, they recommend. That’s easy when your child wants to be a doctor when they grow up. When their life’s ambition is to live off the land in Alaska, encouragement is a little harder to whip up.

Roll with the punches. My nephew once held three adults at bay with the kitchen faucet sprayer.

He was standing on a chair at the sink and had the water on full force. Whenever we’d try to come close, he’d let us have it with the sprayer.

Not only were we sopping wet, so was the kitchen floor and the cabinets.

By the time we got close enough to grab the hose, we were all laughing.

You can’t be too loving, most experts say. I agree but I’d add a cautionary note – sometimes love means doing the hard thing.

Maybe that’s the definition of good parenting – doing the hard thing. Taking away privileges when they don’t live up to promises. Turning off the computer or television when it’s easy to let electronics occupy them.

Loving them when they’re throwing a tantrum, yelling that they can’t stand you or choosing to spend time with friends instead of you.

Out of all the recommendations given, the only trait I believe works year after year is keeping a sense of humor.

Even when your child tries to flush a big candle down the toilet.

Even when your child leaves his Legos on the carpet and you step on them in the middle of the night.

And, yes, even when your child is spraying you and the entire kitchen with the water hose at the sink.

Smile and remember… they’ll be grown and gone way too soon.

Enjoy the chaos while you can.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I went grocery shopping over the weekend and sticker shock got me. Grapes used to be 79 cents a pound, and they were now $2.49 a pound. Shrimp was often $5.99 a pound, but those little crustaceans were now $8.99 a pound.

Our mom somehow made sure her seven children had cereal, lunch and dinner every day, and we weren’t rich. My sisters and I reminisce often about the things she did we resented as kids but appreciate as adults.

She usually went to the grocery store without us because kids are needy in the grocery store. Mom learned early that a trip without kids was a lot cheaper, so she’d stop at Winn-Dixie after working all day.

Her Saturdays were spent shopping for the week, but we usually went with her. We’d start out at Globe, a discount store similar to Wal-Mart, where we’d get what we absolutely had to have for clothes or shoes.

Then it was a trip to the day-old bakery store. We liked going there because there were usually doughnuts or some type of pastries on sale, and she’d let us pick those out.

The last stop with all of us was to the meat market, a place we hated. It was a bare-bones butcher shop where the prices were good and the meat cuts were usually the tougher ones.

But Mom was a good cook and we never complained about the roasts she made every Sunday for after-church dinner. She had a way to make them tender and we never thought we were eating on a shoestring.

Every day, I grow more in awe of how my mom managed to feed and take care of seven kids while working full time. None of us felt neglected and we were never hungry.

So during these inflationary times, I thought about the ways I learned to economize from her. Some lessons I mastered. Some I have not.

My grandmother taught me how to cut up a chicken, a skill I’m thankful to have. While looking in the meat section this weekend, four chicken thigh-and-leg sections were $9.50. A whole chicken was $6.

Now I’m a little rusty when it comes to slicing up that chicken, despite watching Gordon Ramsey do it before I hauled out the knives. The cuts aren’t clean, but you can tell which one’s is a leg and which one’s is a wing, so that’s a success.

I also learned how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch. For less than $10, I can make a big pot of spaghetti sauce that’ll feed all of my grandchildren a couple of times.

Cajun cooks know a pot of red beans and rice costs less than $10 and can feed a crowd for days. Some of us Cajun girls, however, never learned how to make red beans and rice, so it’s leftover spaghetti for us.

Teenage girls like clothes, and I didn’t have the money to buy what was in style when I was a teenager. So my Grandma Marguerite taught me how to sew. Back then a McCall’s pattern was 75 cents. I looked at patterns at the local fabric store and was flabbergasted to see patterns are now $20 to $15 and that’s a digital pattern, not even printed on tissue paper.

Fabric is $13 a yard, and that’s just basic, plain cotton fabric. A dress usually requires three yards of fabric, plus thread, zippers and buttons and we’re now up to over $60 for a dress.

I can bargain shop at the resale shops for less than that.

I have rationalized how to save money. If I don’t dust, I don’t have to buy Pledge. A bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid replaces almost all of the cleaning products in my cabinet, and, as my Aunt Domina used to say, elbow grease doesn’t cost a dime.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Store aisles are crowded these days. Overwhelmed shoppers are blocking aisles, school-supply list in hand, while youngsters beg for glitter crayons or three-ring binders big enough to hold a copy of “War and Peace.”

The faces of the parents seemed to be wondering why they were piling their cart up with boxes of glue sticks, pencils and paper when they had to practically beg their child to write more than 25 words for a book report.

This question is legitimate, but parents need to understand just how kids use school supplies.

Children dispense enough hand sanitizer as if they’re going to clean their entire body. They don’t just clean their hands – they rub the sanitizer all over their arms, neck and sometimes their legs.

Most of them will taste the sanitizer at least once. When the teacher isn’t looking, they’ll fill up their hand with the goopy stuff, stick their tongue in the puddle and decide whether or not they like the taste.

Now you know why the teacher needs gallons of hand sanitizer.

When it comes to tissues, I’ve yet to see a child retrieve just one tissue out of the box – they’ll stand in front of the box and yank out tissue after tissue until someone stops them.

Now you know why teachers need extra boxes of Kleenex.

Children are taught to sneeze into the crook of their elbow.

None of them do that. They sneeze right onto the table and the teachers have to quickly wipe that up.

Now you know why the teacher needs a zillion bottles of Clorox wipes.

Highlighters and markers dry out when the tops aren’t put on tight. Children have a different idea about the tops of the markers. They on the end of their tongue, perfect when they want to pretend they’re a rattlesnake or cobra.

Now you know why their highlighters dry out in three weeks.

Here’s the reason you need 148 Ticonderoga pencils.

One year, pencil break was a favorite recess pastime. This is when kids hold pencils out like a board in a karate class. The others try and break the pencil. Most of the time, they’re successful.

Plus nothing’s more fun for a child than standing at the electric pencil sharpener and watching it eat their pencil right out of their hand.

A bottle of glue is the best excuse for creating a new layer of skin on a child’s hands. They’ll pour out as much glue as they can, smooth it out and wait for it to dry. They love nothing more than grossing out the other kids by pretending to peel off a layer of skin.

And now you know why teachers need a gallon of glue.

If a child makes a mistake on a piece of paper, they erase it. Of course, they will erase until the eraser is half gone and there’s a hole in the paper.

So they get a new piece of paper out of their backpack. This can go on at least five more times until the teacher tells them it’s okay to cross out a mistake.

Now you know why they go through notebook paper and erasers so fast.

Glue sticks are fun and children believe you need a lot of glue in art projects. You need lots and lots of glue, in fact, to make sure those construction-paper feathers stick to the cut-out of the turkey.

The tops will get knocked onto the floor and land right next to the tops to all the now dried-out markers and highlighters. Those forgotten tops will stay on the floor until the custodian sweeps them up and throws them away.

Now you know why they need 15 glue sticks and new markers.

So happy shopping, parents, and remember you’re not alone. Somewhere out there is another parent, wandering the school-supply aisle muttering “How many bottles of glue do I have to buy?”

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

We were at a skating party for my grandson, and a small crowd was forming near the concession stand.

At the center of the group was someone in a life-sized Elmo costume, red fur from head to foot.

On the way in, Elmo had handed my husband his business card. I read the card and realized dressing up as Elmo was somebody’s job.

The owner of the suit proclaimed he could show up at a company event or birthday party as everyone’s favorite Muppet.

In these days where traditional jobs are getting harder to find, many people have decided to pave their own way for jobs a bit out of the ordinary.

My entrepreneurial nephew has a bitcoin machine mining money. The last time I visited their house, he smiled the whole time.

He said while we were watching the football game and eating mini hot dogs, he had a machine churning out money.

I’m not sure how much he’s making, but he loves believing he’s his own boss and following his own destiny.

One of the smelliest, but lucrative, odd jobs out there is picking up dog feces. They call themselves “scoop soldiers” and “pet waste removal specialists,” but don’t laugh. They’re making $40 to $45 an hour as a pooper-scooper.

I passed a house the other day and there was a van in the driveway specializing in mobile car washing service. The homeowners had three cars in the driveway in different stages of getting washed.

I Googled the business, and the basic wash and dry was $50 with prices going all the way up to $219.

That’s the price for a “vehicle enhancement service” for one car. SUV’s and trucks are easily $50 more.

You can also get paid to stand in line for people. Nobody wants to wait in line, especially in the Texas heat.

I recently passed the DMV office, and the line was out the door and down the sidewalk past four or five offices.

Somebody had the ingenious idea of renting themselves out as a line holder for people. They might be getting the last laugh. Line holders can make up to $40,000 a year.

If you love seeing life color-coded and organized into see-through boxes and baskets, you can get paid to declutter someone’s house.

You’ll never run out of work because most of us have a tough time getting rid of “stuff.”

Along with decluttering, people pay big bucks for someone to organize their bathrooms and kitchens.

You can tackle the job yourself, but buyer beware. You’ll easily spend hundreds of dollars for fancy see-through containers, a Cricut labeling machine — $200 on Amazon – and woven baskets.

And your kids will still stand in front of your perfectly organized pantry and proclaim there’s nothing to eat.

If you like working in the kitchen, there’s a couple of jobs for you. One of the most popular is a sideline cake baking business.

You need a fancy mixer, counter and refrigerator space and the ability to create The Hulk or Elsa out of butter and sugar.

You also need to know what the following words mean:  fondant, buttercream icing, royal icing, ganache, marzipan, and gum paste.

This home business might not be for you if those words sound like a foreign language.

If you can whip up a delicious King Ranch Chicken casserole dish, throw together a tossed salad and bake a pan of brownies, people will compensate you to make their dinner. Not bad if you like spending time in the kitchen and getting paid for it.

So if you’re looking for an outside job, consider dressing up as one of your favorite superheroes or rolling up your sleeves and throwing away people’s junk.

Who knows? In the words of organizing guru Marie Kondo, you might spark joy in your customers’ lives and your own as you follow your sideline job dream.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Early one weekend morning, I was in a downtown area, looking for a place to park so I could explore a city green space. The parking garages were closed, and the only choice was to parallel park on the street.

I know this to be true because I circled the block four times, hoping to weasel out of parallel parking. I do not possess that skill, nor do I have a smart car that’ll park for me.

With no other choice, I took a deep breath and attempted the maneuver, cutting the wheel and backing in.

Not good enough, so I tried again and again.

By this time, especially with all that turning and twisting, the car had to be practically touching the curb.

I got out, looked, and my car was about two feet away from the curb. I decided that was close enough. I turned the engine off and enjoyed the green space.

Sometimes, close enough is good enough.

Sewing is that way for me. I decided to make some pillow shams, a project I haven’t tackled since my boys were in diapers.

After the third YouTube video of demonstrating how to find the exact middle of the material, I threw the tape measure against the wall,

There was no way I was going to get those seams exactly 18 and an eighth inches apart.

Instead, I eyeballed it.

There wasn’t an equal hem on both sides of the sham, but the seams were hidden. They were good enough and close enough and, from the front, the shams looked nice and neat.

In this case, a guess was good enough.

For years, I’ve made pancakes so now I eyeball the dry mix and the milk, and most of the time, I get pretty close the first time.

But I don’t have to be exact. If the batter’s too runny, I add more dry mix. If it’s too thick, I add more milk.

Close enough, in this case, is definitely good enough.

I decided long ago that when it comes to recipes, close enough is good enough.

My sister gave me a recipe for a spicy chicken casserole.

The long list of ingredients included boiling a chicken, straining the broth, chopping up chiles and melting cheese.

No way, I told myself.

I bought a rotisserie chicken and a box of spicy Velveeta cheese. Did that casserole have deboned chicken and hand-grated cheese?

Nope.

Did anyone complain?

Nope.

Close enough, once again, was good enough.

I eyeball hanging pictures on the wall. I’ve tried hanging them side by side, but I’ve never gotten it right, even when I use a ruler and a level. So, I made a choice to change my decorating style to staggered and “eclectic.”

In other words – all over the place.

I’ve racked my brain, trying to think of areas in my everyday life where I have to be precise. Not cooking, definitely not cleaning or the laundry.

The dog doesn’t require me to do things precisely – she just wants to be fed and let out to chase squirrels in the back yard.

I will concede, however, that there’s a place, reason and time to be precise.

Removing an appendix or performing LASIK eye surgery both require precise measurements.

Architects, accountants and airplane pilots must be precise in their fields. We count on pharmacists getting the dosage in our medications correct down to the last gram.

But I’m not a doctor, dentist, ophthalmologist or airline pilot. I’m just a regular person trying to bumble my way through life.

So if I hang a picture a little crooked, have a half-inch hem on one side of a pillow sham and an inch hem on the other, that’s close enough.

And good enough for me.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Houston traffic is notorious for being bumper-to-bumper frustrating.

My temper gets the best of me sometimes, especially when someone zooms across four lanes of traffic in front of me to make the exit.

I’ve seen people reading a book while driving, blaring music so loud my eardrums hurt and forgetting their vehicle was equipped with turn signals.

But I saw something this week I never expected to see.

Road rage on steroids.

I was making a U-turn underneath the interstate. Waiting to merge, I noticed two cars in the intersection to my right had been in a fender bender. One of them had run the light, and the car headed south had been T-boned.

Cars were zipping around the wreck, so there wasn’t an opening for me and the dozen or so cars behind me to merge.

But then, in less than a minute, the unbelievable happened.

The car that had T-boned the side of the other car backed up. I thought it was to start clearing the intersection. But then the driver put his or her car into drive and bashed the side of the other car again.

Things like that happen in the movies, not in real life, I thought. The person behind me honked, and I moved as there was an opening. I thought about going back but there was no way to get to that intersection with traffic from all directions.

I drove away with my mouth open. I’d seen road rage on videos but never in real life, never to that level of anger and frustration.

This person’s car was banged up, but to intentionally bash it in again, and endanger the safety of the person in the other car as well as him or herself, was unimaginable.

There’s really no excuse for acting like an out-of-control lunatic when things go wrong. But there are quite a few reasons why people’s tolerance is at the empty mark.

Covid tops the list.

At the beginning of the pandemic, our loved ones were isolated from us while they were sick. We weren’t allowed to see them in their final days, weren’t allowed to say goodbye.

For two years, we lost the opportunity to take vacations, visit relatives, or go to the movies. Now a variant of the virus is making the rounds, and we’re cancelling activities again.

There’s the heat.

Southerners know July and August are two of the most miserable months of the year. In a state where it’s hot a good bit of the time, having a string of 100-plus degree days ignites tempers as well as brush fires. And we haven’t even gotten our first electric bill.

These days, it’s become acceptable to be a rude, obnoxious human being. Acting as a decent human being is no longer the first choice.

We need to start seeing people wearing an apron, a name tag or a uniform as a person.

A teenager saving money for a car or tuition.

A single mom working a thank-less job to provide for her children.

A father taking the job nobody else wanted because he wants to provide for his family.

A teacher struggling with demanding parents and a system that demands more than anyone should have to give.

A driver who made a mistake in judgment. Not someone who purposely left home, hoping he or she could wreck her car and yours.

The time is now to give people a break.

Revenge therapy doesn’t work. You don’t have the right to lose your temper and cause someone else to fear for their safety.

If another driver is traveling slower than the traffic around them, that’s their choice, not a personal slam to you.

If the clerk in the store isn’t perky and friendly, perhaps it’s because they’re the only one who showed up for work that day and customers have been rude and obnoxious for the past four hours.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and rein in that temper.

Show compassion and civility.

Let’s make the world a better place.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Grandchild number six is coming our way in August, and it’s been a while since we’ve helped outfit an infant.

Things have changed.

Our mother’s right arm flung across our chests if the car came to a sudden stop was considered safe enough when we were kids. Required car seats came along and changed the world.

When my now 42-year-old son was born, the infant car seat weighed about five pounds. They cost less than $20 and did the job.

By the time the third child came along, the price had tripled and the car seat/baby carrier weighed about 20 pounds. By the time he could walk, I had biceps like Thor’s.

Today’s car seats are called a system. There’s a base that stays in the car. You press one button on the top and the seat detaches and hooks right into the stroller, also part of the system.

There’s a cost for that technology — $700.

I kid you not.

Diaper bags still serve the same purpose – lugging around three or four Pampers, teething rings, an extra onesie, wipes and a bowl of dry cereal.

My purse was the best diaper bag around. I fished stale Cheerios and Froot Loops out of the bottom of that purse for years.

Today’s diaper bags start out at $75 because they’re considered designer bags. Call them what you may, but they still only have room for diapers, a change of clothes and a bowl of organic cereal.

No baby home is complete without toys. Our sons had quite a bit of fun banging Tupperware measuring cups and wooden spoons on an old pot or the floor. The price tag for today’s sensory toys starts at $19.95 and they don’t even talk to you.

When it comes to outfitting the baby’s room, the costs are high. Years ago, crib sheets came in three colors – white, yellow and light green. I remember paying $5 for one and thinking that baby would be sleeping like a king.

Today’s shoppers must go through sticker shock because crib sheets come in sets – gotta have the matching pillow – and can sell for up to $179 for one sheet and one accompanying item.

Baby bottles were made out of plastic – clear or white. You could find them at any late-night Piggly-Wiggly. The price was right – 99 cents for three.

You can still find the cheap plastic ones, but you’d be labeled a slacker if you showed up at Chuck-E-Cheese with those.

Today’s baby bottles come in colorful sets, complete with a choice of glass or plastic. They claim to help with colic, burping and gas, problems all of my babies had.

The only sure-fire cure came from my grandmother – a little baking soda in a teaspoon, add water, and give to the baby until he belched. Worked every time.

Let’s not forget the strides we’ve made in diapers.

When my eldest was born, I wanted to be a natural woman and save the planet. I bought a package of 12 cotton cloth diapers, baby diaper pins and plastic pants.

Those cloth diapers became dust cloths after the first time I cleaned a dirty one in the toilet. After that, I’d have given up my high heels before I’d give up disposable diapers.

Go ahead and buy those fancy nets and plastic fences to try and prevent a child from getting their head stuck in between the spindles on the staircase.

They’re going to try and stick their head through there anyway.

And they’ll try to flush candles down the toilet.

And they’ll write on the walls with a black marker you overlooked underneath the recliner.

No matter the price tag, some things never change.

Babies will cry when they’re hungry, overflow a diaper when you don’t have a spare and reject every pacifier you buy them.

We’re hoping grandchild number 6 settles for the three-for-a-dollar binkies.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Cars are simply machines that get us from one place to another. Fill them up with gas and replace the tires when the old ones wear out. I usually get attached to vehicles because they’re more than a machine to me.

Such is the case with a car we just traded in. We bought a Highlander back in 2015, and she safely transported me over 170,000 miles. Some of those miles included trips to the beaches in Gulf Shores, Ala. and touring wineries in the Hill Country.

Most of the miles were from every-day life – going to and from work, trips to the grocery store or taking grandchildren from our house to theirs. I felt safe in that big car, just as I did as a teenage driver.

My first car was an old Pontiac Executive. The car was like a boat – four of us could sit in the front seat with no problem. My dad gave it to his teenagers when he wanted a new Cadillac, and we were thrilled.

That car took a young teenager everywhere she wanted to go and it was a sad day when dad sold the car for another Caddy.

The first car I bought was a white hatchback Honda Civic — $1,995. That little car took my toddler son and me everywhere – to work, day care, the grocery store and a summer trip to Florida.

We traded that car for a mini-van when our second son was coming along. I loved the mini-vans we had. The boys were free to litter the floor with toys and dropped chicken nuggets. There were permanent indentations in the vinyl from where car seats had been belted in for years.

When the boys were teens, they purchased their own cars, and a mini-van was no longer needed. I bought a sedan and that car became my crying space.

My dad passed away, and I grieved for him in the car. The Mazda was a safe place to cry for him, an almost daily occurrence that first six months.

Someone rear-ended me one rainy evening, and the body shop told us the car was totaled. I remembered saying a prayer of thanks to the car for giving me a safe space when I needed it.

We replaced the crying car with a bigger sedan, and that car fit me quite well – not too big, not too small.

But when grandchild number four was due and number five joined the clan, we needed a vehicle with enough room for all the grandkids. The Highlander had room for all the grandchildren and two adults, just the right number of seats we needed.

That Highlander was my trusty companion – taking me back and forth everywhere I went with plenty of room for luggage, groceries, bikes, cameras and gifts.

She transported our grandchildren to museums, parks and the beach. She didn’t mind dirt, sand, spilled drinks or having Legos underneath the seats.

Our Highlander was reliable and was sometimes a place where I could sing as loud and off-key as I wanted or cry after visiting the cemetery.

But she was showing her age. There were creaks and rattles, parts were wearing out and traveling long distances were becoming chancy. After all, the old girl was seven years old and had many miles on her.

Still, when we traded her in, I felt guilty. Sure, the Highlander was only a car, an inanimate object, but with her, I’d felt safe to take a quiet ride or a noisy one.

I could complain in that car, whine about the unfairness of life or roll the windows down and enjoy a calming ride in the country. On particularly rough days, I could howl at the sky and the car never complained.

The car was a comfortable friend.

I believe this next vehicle will live up to the legacy of the one before her, but the bar is high.

I simply hope the next owner of our old car finds a friend in her, just like I did.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

A year ago, on my 66^th birthday, I flippantly said I had a goal. I was going to visit Route 66 the year I was 66 and take a selfie with a Route 66 sign.

A bit of history – Route 66 was the main road between California and Chicago and is nicknamed “The Mother Road.” During the Depression and the Dust Bowl, Route 66 was flooded with people heading west with dreams of a better life.

After the economy improved, people wanted to sightsee, and Route 66 was the best way to tour a good bit of the country. A 1946 song by Bobby Troup made the road even more popular because people wanted to “get their kicks on Route 66.”

When interstates became the fastest way to travel, the popularity of Route 66 faded. But people had fond memories of the old road.

Folks did their best to preserve some of the iconic Mother Road signs and gas stations, and tacky souvenir shops are now popular tourist attractions.

My off-hand comment became something friends and family would ask about. Every month, I’d remind myself to make good on that promise.

Covid put a damper on most of the year, as did commitments that popped up. The promise to myself took a back seat to everything else.

I told myself standing on Route 66 and taking a selfie was a silly thing, a trip just to say I did it. Then I’d think about the travel expenses and time away from home, and the thought became a whisper.

A few weeks ago, my grandson drew a beautiful, geometric-inspired picture with an armadillo in the middle. He included a variety of icons, but there was one that jumped out – an interstate sign with the name “Route 66.” He’d remembered, and there was no way I’d disappoint that darling.

Logging onto Google Maps, the closest place to visit Route 66 was Oklahoma City, 450 miles from my front door.

A couple of weeks later, I packed up the car and headed north. My nephew, Jarrod, lives around Dallas so we made plans for lunch in downtown Denton. My next stop was the welcome station in Oklahoma where I took a picture on my phone and texted it to the grandkids.

Later in the day, I found a hotel and then headed off to the Round Barn, an iconic stop on Route 66. The barn was closed, but there was a Route 66 sign on the premises, and I took a selfie there, fulfilling a promise I’d made almost a year ago.

I don’t break promises to other people, but broken promises litter my path like pieces of confetti. I’ll lose weight, take that fitness class, clean out that cabinet, write more letters

But when my grandson believed I’d make the trip, there was no way I’d back out. I’ll admit, after I took that selfie with the Route 66 sign, I held my head a little higher.

Instead of coming straight home on the interstate, I headed east and visited a Route 66 museum in Chandler, Okla. A knowledgeable volunteer told me the history of the museum and pointed out some of the iconic sights people saw along Route 66 back when The Mother Road was popular.

The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is give my grandson the T-shirt I bought for him with Route 66 printed on the front. I want him to know his encouragement motivated me to keep my promise and get my kicks on Route 66.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

My fear of heights is irrational.

But it’s real.

My phobia started on a trip to California. We were traveling along Pacific Highway, a breathtaking highway. The road hugs the coastline and can be breathtaking.

However, our friend, who was driving the car, was speeding. We’d come around a curve and it seemed there was six inches between our tires and the drop off into the ocean. It was so scary, I laid down on the floor in the back seat with my eyes closed.

The next time was when I was visiting my son in Taiwan. He planned a trip up a mountain to visit a spa and see the countryside from up high.

The road to the spa was curvy and winding and straight up. I spent our lunch break with a hot towel on my head. I slept on the way down, refusing to face that part of the trip.

A trip to Colorado a couple of years ago should’ve been gorgeous, especially a planned leg from Durango to Telluride. There’s twists and turns, steep climbs and stomach-dropping descents.

I thought I could make it, but half way there, my brother took pity on me and we turned around.

Last year, we decided to take a coming-out-of-Covid trip, and I chose Arizona. All the pictures show deserts so I figured we’d be horizontal the whole time.

I was wrong.

The view out of Phoenix was flat and calm, but didn’t last long. We were headed to a quaint town, Prescott, and we had to climb 5,367 feet to get there.

Google Maps doesn’t tell you that extremely important piece of information when you’re plotting a trip.

We couldn’t see around the curves, and when we did, it was a petrifying view of either plunging straight down or climbing up a steep road, engine straining, with the knowledge that what goes up must come down.

Perhaps watching videos of people driving on mountain roads would be reassuring, I thought. After all, they got home safe and sound.

My fears intensified after watching these drivers weave back and forth, avoiding the “falling rocks” and “dangerous gorge” signs along the way.

Maybe it was just me who was scared on that Phoenix to Prescott road. So I watched a video of a family driving the same trip.

When they arrived in Prescott, their little girl looked like she’d been on the losing end of an encounter with a vampire – her eyes gaunt, her face white, her mouth hanging open.

“She has a stomach ache,” her mother said to the camera.

“She had a terrifying experience,” I yelled at my computer screen.

The next trip I planned was to Boston because it’s 19 feet above sea level.

I checked.

On a recent phone call with my eldest son, we talked about my acrophobia.

“What are you scared of?” my son asked. “That you’re going to fall off the road?

“Yes,” I said. “There’s a reason roads are nicknamed ‘Highway of Death’ and ‘Death Road.’”

“You’re in a car that weighs 2,000 pounds. You’re not going to fall off a road going 30 miles an hour. When’s the last time you heard of an accident like that?”

“Today. Some people had a Jeep roll down the mountain right in front of them,” I said triumphantly.

He had no answer for that. I didn’t tell him they were on a rocky mountain road in a vehicle built for mountain travel. I wouldn’t get off the interstate for all the chocolate in the world.

Before we take another trip, I’m going to see if I can find a hypnotists who can ease my fear of heights.

If they can convince someone to squawk like a chicken, they just might be able to help me relax the next time I plan a trip more than 20 feet above sea level.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.