Fire has fascinated and terrified me.

As a kid, I remember toasting marshmallows on an open fire, learning to put the marshmallow next to some glowing embers and slowly letting it turn a caramel brown with warm insides instead of sticking the mallow into the flames and burning it to a crisp while the middle stayed hard.

I loved the sound of the log’s crackle and pop, watching in a hypnotic trance as they transformed from muddy brown to scarlet orange.

The smoke smell gets into your hair but you don’t mind because the feeling of comfort overwhelms you as the stars twinkle overhead.

Then there’s the terror of a house fire. I was visiting my grandparents many years ago, and my grandfather was sitting in his usual place near a big picture window that overlooked the street.

Across the street, a house was on fire.

“That thing’s really going up,” I said to him.

“Yes it sure is,” he calmly said, sitting there watching the flames against the dark sky.

A few minutes later, my aunt came rushing into the room.

“Dad, your house is on fire!” she yelled.

He shook his head in agreement and continued to watch the flames get higher and higher.

“You own that house?” I asked him.

He shook his head yes as my aunt continued to pace the room and curse the fire department.

“Why aren’t you more upset?” I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“What’re you going to do,” he said, resignation and acceptance in his voice.

Years later, after my grandparents had both passed away, their grand house at the top of the hill burned beyond rescue, the result of some druggies illegally in the house.

But small campfires are cozy and comforting on a cold night. It had been years since I’d sat around a campfire, so I was thrilled when my husband suggested building a small campfire pit in our back yard.

He’d been on a Scout campout and the outing reminded him how much fun youngsters can have around a campfire. He brought home some stones, a few logs and built a small fire ring in our back yard.

The grandchildren were visiting that weekend, and they were thrilled when he said we’d have a campfire and marshmallow roast. The boys from across the street came over, and we pulled some lawn chairs up around the fire.

As the flames danced, one of the boys decided to tell a scary story.

No campfire ghost story is complete without a flashlight held underneath a boy’s chin to illuminate the mental images he’s describing, and this night was no different. Except the “monster” in the story was a giant chicken nugget.

We all had a good laugh about the monster nugget, and then Luke passed the flashlight around the circle until each child had a turn at embellishing the story. While they waited their turn, the kids roasted marshmallows, each finding their favorite sweet spot in the flames.

Sitting outside with loved ones with no electronics, no television and no music reminded me that simple pleasures are always the best.

Movies can be great time distractions, rock music can get your blood flowing and television offers a few laughs.

But we made memories around that campfire, serenaded only by the crackling of the fire and the laughter of children as they used their imaginations to tell tall tales and look for fireflies.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

“Abby, stop running around.”

“Abby, stop fidgeting and come get in this picture.”

“Abby, Abby, Abby!”

We were visiting Goose Island State Park just north of Rockport. There were four young girls with their grandparents in the park, and one of the girls seemed to be in constant motion.

She had to be Abby.

“Abby, come over here and sit still.”

These orders were coming from her grandmother who was yelling loud enough for me to hear her even though I was standing on the other side of the Big Tree, the park’s’ main attraction.

A girl with a blonde ponytail and purple sneakers came racing past us with an iPad in hand, stopping to take pictures of the flowers, the leaves and the sky.

This was definitely Abby because her grandmother was yelling at her to stop running around the tree.

Her grandmother was also trying to get the younger girls to sit on a low-hanging branch so she could take a picture with her phone.

Luck wasn’t on her side.

Neither was Abby.

The three younger girls were bouncing up and down on the branch, and the grandmother was getting more irritated every minute.

“Girls, stop rocking that branch,” their grandmother whined. “I’m trying to take a picture and I want you all to smile so I can get a good picture.”

Whenever the girls managed to sit still long enough for her to take a picture, she wasn’t satisfied.

“That didn’t turn out because you were squirming around,” she told her granddaughters. “Now sit still so I can take another one.”

In the meantime, Abby had climbed up a tree and was swinging on a branch.

“Abby, come here,” the grandmother yelled, and there was an edge in her voice. I think Abby knew that Grandma meant business this time.

Abby climbed down and skipped over to where her sisters were posed. Orders were barked at Abby the whole time her grandmother was trying to arrange the girls for a pleasing shot.

“Stop moving. Stop bouncing that limb. Smile. Not that smile, your real smile.”

Under my breath, I mumbled some choice orders for the grandmother:  “let those kids be kids” and “an impromptu smile is 100 percent better than a forced one.”

After a few minutes, grandmother must’ve been pleased with the images because she told the girls to go play.

Not surprisingly, Abby came racing around us again, a huge smile on her face. On her second lap, she stopped, looked at one of old oak trees and began to climb up on one of the low-hanging branches.

I told my husband I was ready to go, and made my way to the exit past the tree where this rambunctious girl was perched on a limb, looking out over the world.

“Are you Abby,” I asked her.

She smiled and said she was.

“You keep being Abby,” I told her, softly enough so grandmother wouldn’t hear. “Don’t let anybody try to keep you from being you, okay?”

She smiled and said she wouldn’t.

We need to let young girls and boys be kids.

We need to let them run, skip, climb trees, be silly and not make them pose for a pre-conceived notion we have of what makes a good photograph.

Take photos of them hanging upside from a tree limb or lying on the grass looking up at the sky while they find animal shapes in the clouds.

Take pictures of them laughing, with chocolate ice cream on their faces and dirt on their noses as they enjoy those carefree and fleeting moments of being a kid.

And Abby?

You go, girl. Don’t let anybody or anything stop you.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Today, my youngest sister is celebrating a birthday milestone. Within the next month, three more of my siblings will blow out the candles on their cake.

We Heberts have always celebrated birthdays in a big way, mostly because there were seven children, and a birthday was the one day we could claim for ourselves.

Holidays, like Halloween and Easter, were shared, and we all got the same amount of loot.

But birthdays – those were special.

I still picture us as energetic kids, plastic streamers flying from our bicycle handlebars as we raced to the neighborhood swim spot.

The Baker Estates pool was our favorite summer hang out. All of us were expert swimmers, and my brothers could do back flips, half gainers and jack knives all day long off the diving board.

We moved through the different cycles of life together – graduations, dating, marriage, families.  Our children were born months apart so there was always a cousin to play with.

As our children grew up, we passed our childhood traditions onto them. There were Easter egg hunts, barbecues and crawfish boils and the never-ending basketball game in our parents’ driveway.

Then there came a time when the nephews started beating their uncles, and the driveway became center court for both nieces and nephews with the aunts and uncles on the patio, yelling plays and encouragement from the sidelines.

We celebrated high school graduations, then college graduations, engagement parties and weddings.

Nieces and nephews added children to the mix, and jobs, moves and time with our grandchildren and sons- and daughters-in-law pulled the seven in different directions.

Phone calls, text messaging and the internet helped us stay connected over the years but what hasn’t changed is celebrating our birthdays.

Our birthday traditions, friendly jabs and teasing has sustained the seven Hebert siblings for over six decades. I don’t know what I’d do without my siblings, and today, on my sister Donna’s birthday, is a good time to let them know how special they are.

Brother Jimmy is the most genuinely nice person I know, a master dentist and a sounding board without ever judging. He laughs at himself and makes us all comfortable when we make a mistake.

Brother Johnny’s unshakable faith inspires others on his radio broadcast, and his true voice accompanied by his playing the guitar to songs he’s written is always achingly beautiful.

Sister Diane is confident, extremely smart, beautiful and most outspoken and honest woman I know. I wish every day I could be as dynamic, energetic and selfless as she is.

She’s always the first to call on our actual birthday, and it’s always a joke when our brother Jimmy calls the day before. Her reply:  “Doesn’t count. You have to call on the actual day.”

Brother Joey is calmly patient with a dry and quick wit balanced by wood-working expertise and a selfless giving nature. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angry or heard him say an unkind word about anyone, not even ex-LSU football coach Nick Saban.

Sister Donna is not only beautiful but she’s smart, sassy and not afraid of challenges. She can still turn heads and she’s artistic in everything she does. Whenever I need to vent, she listens without judging.

Our baby brother, Jeff, is a brilliantly gifted artist whose work deserves to be on display. His introspective and wise side balances out one of the wittiest and funniest people I’ve ever met. Plus he’s a fabulous dancer.

Their spouses are equally wonderful, and there’s no line between in-laws and siblings.

Life’s full of sadness and unexpected calamities. Never miss an opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary people in your life, especially on their birthday.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.                 

We’re a country of complainers.

Case in point – the Super Bowl half-time show with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.

Critics say the dances were lewd, and women were exploited by the props and revealing outfits.

Those who liked the performance cited a lack of cultural understanding. The dances used are part of the Latin and Lebanese cultures, they said, and people should stop complaining and be happy those cultures were featured.

There’s complaints about the Super Bowl ad featuring Cpl. Kyle Carpenter and Johnny Cash’s song about the rugged flag.

Critics said the song was a slap in the face to Colin Kaepernick, the ex-NFL football player who took a knee during the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Others said the video was honoring a young man who served bravely in the military when asked to do so by his country.

Nobody wins this argument except the complainers.

If you’re on social media, more than half of the postings are complaining about something or someone. Whole neighborhoods complain about people who drive too fast or too slow in their neighborhoods or who – gasp – park on the street.

Their license plates are published and people are outraged at this despicable behavior. Seldom are the whistle blowers called out for being complainers.

Lines cause a great deal of whining.

People complain about waiting in line and lines that move too slowly. They complain if they happen to get in the wrong line at the grocery store, if there’s a line at the post office or if there’s a line at the DMV.

Many of us remember the days of standing next to the television set and rotating the rabbit-ear antennae until the signal came in clear enough for our parents to watch “Gunsmoke.”

We all muttered under our breath about our unfair parents and vowed we’d never make our children do that for us.

Yet we’re the generation that asks our kids to go find the TV remote control and bring it to us.

We complained when summer hit and the attic fan in the house couldn’t keep us cool. Then we got window air conditioners and complained the fans were too loud. We couldn’t hear Marshal Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty talking and the electric bill was too high.

So we got central air and heat and we still complained about the bill.

We complain about slow service in restaurants and baggers in the grocery store who put our produce in the same bag as frozen tater tots.

Restaurants are too cold, too hot, too slow or the food’s not up to our standards.

Maybe it’s time we stop complaining, swallow a dose of civility and have a reality check.

If you think the dancers at the Super Bowl half-time show were inappropriately dressed, you haven’t been to the mall lately to see what people wear out in public. It’s a lot less material than what I saw on television.

You might disagree with Colin Kaepernick, but we live in a country where we are free to disagree.

We can complain about the post office, but I can barely read my own handwriting – how they can read millions of personally addressed mail and still get those letters where they’re supposed to go astounds me.

The cable bill might be high, but no way I’m taking “Paw Patrol” away from the grandkids.

Road construction’s no fun, but it’s a short inconvenience for a much-better roadway.

Restaurant servers and baggers in the grocery store barely make minimum wage – let’s see how you’d handle rude customers when you’re not bringing home a decent paycheck.

It’s a lot harder to look past the inconvenience and understand why there’s a line, why people park in the street or why utilities cost so much.

Stop taking the easy way and, for heaven’s sake, stop complaining.

Instead, be grateful and use that waiting time to count your blessings.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

Photoshop is interesting software for enhancing photos. Changing color images to black and white is fairly simple and the removal of color changes the mood instantly.

Bare tree limbs against a blue sky looks quite menacing when the image’s in black and white, and I usually fall back on the color image to see the vividness in the photo.

When I ran across an article featuring colorized photos of Holocaust victims, I reluctantly clicked on the link.

When we look at photos from the concentration camps, they’re beyond horrific. Emaciated people lying side by side in wooden bunks with barely any room to breathe.

Their bodies reflect starvation and brutalization, and their faces are hopeless.

That’s the reaction seeing the photos in black and white. But a new effort has artists colorizing the black-and-white images.

The results demands that viewers see the photos in a new light – real people with freckles, dimples and deep brown eyes.

The website “Faces of Auschwitz” has a collection of the colorized photos, and they will make you cry in sorrow for the beautiful, innocent people who met such a horrific death.

The number of those killed in the Nazi death camps is staggering – approximately 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz and nearly 1.1 million were Jews. Of those 1.3 million, 1.1 million – 85 percent – were gassed, beaten to death or starved to death.

One fact will haunt you – 232,000 children were sent to Auschwitz, separated from their parents and either executed, made to work or used for experiments.

On a single day, Oct. 10, 1944, 800 children were gassed to death at Auschwitz.

How did the people who carried out these atrocities go home to their families at night?

How did they eat dinner with their children, play in the park with their sons and enjoy a warm bed, knowing that a few miles away, children were starving to death in the frigid cold.

This week was the observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to remember these atrocities so they don’t happen again.

What’s sad is most young people lack basic knowledge about what the Holocaust was and how many Jews and “enemies” of the German state were tortured and killed.

There’s an old saying by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We think mass political killings could never happen in these days of 24-hour news and information on every subject under the sun at our fingertips, but atrocities happen every day, and we either don’t know or turn a blind eye.

When most people don’t have a clue about events like the Holocaust, we are in grave danger of repeating these same crimes against those whose religious or political beliefs are different from ours.

Many years ago, I arranged for a Holocaust survivor to speak at a church in Richmond. We opened the talk up to the community, and we all left in shock as we heard this gentle woman describe how she had to learn to lie to survive.

I think of her often, even more so as I looked at those colorized pictures of the Holocaust victims.

Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor said we see the world in color and the colorized photos bring these people and those events back to life for us. We must remember the evil people can commit if we want to stay off that path.

Ignorance and apathy are the first mile markers.

Hatred and envy ensure we stay on that road.

Learn your history.

Do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

And remember for those who are no longer here.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

Grown-up problems are tough.

There’s bills to pay, income tax woes and purchasing new tires for one’s vehicle.

But the worst grown-up problem is dealing with the “ick.”

It’s the yukky jobs no grown up wants to ever tackle.

I faced the “ick” this week when our freezer started acting crazy.

Instead of filling up the ice-cube tray with water and emptying frozen cubes into the ice dispenser, the water kept overflowing the tray and we’d find water all over the floor.

The inside of the freezer looked like something out of an arctic cave. But the worst was what our son discovered when he took a flashlight and looked up into the tucked-away water dispenser area to figure out what was going wrong.

He found the mother lode of ick.

Fifteen years’ worth of lime scale, mineral deposits and gunky stuff was all up in there. There was no way to see the ick because it was out of the line of sight.

So I started looking around the house at other hidden areas, and I saw quite a few housekeeping items to add to my ick list.

Since I was in the kitchen, I realized it had been a while since I’d swept or vacuumed underneath the refrigerator. When I got down on the floor and looked, there was so much dust under there, I thought I was looking into an abandoned mummy’s cave.

Standing up, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I dusted off the top of the refrigerator. I’ve always rationalized that cleaning chore away with the fact that I’m only 5’2” tall and I can’t see what’s up there so it doesn’t matter.

It matters.

Same goes for the top shelves in the kitchen cabinets. I hauled out the step stool and looked – yep, lots of dust up there.

While I was on the ladder, I noticed there’s dust on the ceiling fan blades. Usually the fans are running because we live in the South where it’s hot most of the year.

Because it’s winter and they’re not spinning, I can finally see the layer of dust on top of the blades.

I took a long, hard look at the living room. I don’t remember the last time I took the cushions off the couch to vacuum, but I have a feeling it’s pretty grubby because the grandkids love to eat popcorn and cookies on the couch while watching television.

Then there’s the lampshades. I thought the bulbs were growing dimmer. Turns out, there’s dust on the lampshades. Since we never touch the lampshades, that ick layer has remained undisturbed for months.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the shower head didn’t seem to be putting out as much water. I put on my glasses and noticed mineral deposits were covering some of the holes.

We short people have a tough time keeping an eye on the shower heads, but some vinegar and a stiff brush took care of that problem.

I walked into the bedroom and looked behind the door. We never close that door, so, as a result, there’s a nice accumulation of dust and dog hair back there.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Just so it doesn’t appear our house should be visited by the board of health, I keep most areas clean. Bleach and Lysol are my big buddies on Saturday mornings when it’s house cleaning time, and the inside of the refrigerator gets a good cleaning once every couple of months.

This morning, I told my husband about the ick, and to tell the refrigerator repair people not to come. We’d be wheeling that fridge out and replacing it with a new clean refrigerator.

But by the time I came home, he’d completely taken apart the whole water dispensing section in the door of the fridge, cleaned and disinfected every inch of the water dispenser area and run bleach and water through all the tubes.

He got rid of the ick.

If only I can talk him into tackling the top of the fridge…

 

              This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

I’m not much for the outdoors.

Winters are the worst as I hate being cold. I’m bundled up in socks, sweat pants, and a robe every evening the thermometer dips below 60 degrees.

It doesn’t matter that the temperature in the house is the same in January as it is in July. My feet sense that winter’s here, and they turn into ice cubes.

I enjoy looking at snow and wintery landscapes as long as I’m snuggled up underneath a blanket indoors.

When our son invited me to come up and help him clear some brush behind the house he’s building, I was happy to go. Not because I’d be spending the day outside in January but because I’d be spending the day with my grandchildren.

Chris had built a nice rectangular fire pit, and it was all set up when we arrived. All of us got busy picking up logs and branches, throwing them in one giant pile.

After a while, we wanted to build a fire in the pit to warm up, so Chris gathered some old papers and a lighter.

He’d get the paper to light, but the fire kept going out. After about 30 minutes, my cold fingers told me that fire needed to get lit and lit fast.

Chris handed over fire duties to me, but this city gal wasn’t quite sure where to start.

And then I remembered how my husband taught our boys and me many years ago how to build a successful fire.

I recall being frustrated with his making us divide the sticks into four piles – small sticks and twigs to use for kindling, small sticks, medium-sized sticks and the biggest logs we’d gathered.

As a person who wants to get things done quickly, I didn’t see why we couldn’t just dump all the sticks into one pile.

An Eagle Scout and an engineer, hubby said we needed to line up what we needed first and then build the fire correctly or it wouldn’t last long.

So for years, I gathered sticks, separated them into piles and secretly complained that I was having to do a lot of work when I could just as easily have one giant pile of sticks and pull out what I needed when I needed it.

At first, I tried to light the newspaper on fire and throw some big sticks in there, but the flames went out. After about 15 minutes, I conceded – husband was right. We needed to start with the basics.

So I cleared everything out of the fire pit and built a rectangular base out of medium-sized sticks, just like he’d taught me, and put newspaper on top of that so air could get underneath the paper.

On top of the newspaper, I arranged small sticks and some dried moss. One click of a Bic lighter, and the newspaper caught fire, as did the small sticks. I slowly added more small sticks, careful not to overload the fledgling flames.

I had to admit, having the sticks separated made it easy to add the little sticks instead of hunting through a big pile.

With a nice-sized flame going, I added a few medium-sized sticks – just a few at a time – and watched the fire catch hold and actually burn. In about 1

I’m not much for the outdoors.

Winters are the worst as I hate being cold. I’m bundled up in socks, sweat pants, and a robe every evening the thermometer dips below 60 degrees.

It doesn’t matter that the temperature in the house is the same in January as it is in July. My feet sense that winter’s here, and they turn into ice cubes.

I enjoy looking at snow and wintery landscapes as long as I’m snuggled up underneath a blanket indoors.

When our son invited me to come up and help him clear some brush behind the house he’s building, I was happy to go. Not because I’d be spending the day outside in January but because I’d be spending the day with my grandchildren.

Chris had built a nice rectangular fire pit, and it was all set up when we arrived. All of us got busy picking up logs and branches, throwing them in one giant pile.

After a while, we wanted to build a fire in the pit to warm up, so Chris gathered some old papers and a lighter.

He’d get the paper to light, but the fire kept going out. After about 30 minutes, my cold fingers told me that fire needed to get lit and lit fast.

Chris handed over fire duties to me, but this city gal wasn’t quite sure where to start.

And then I remembered how my husband taught our boys and me many years ago how to build a successful fire.

I recall being frustrated with his making us divide the sticks into four piles – small sticks and twigs to use for kindling, small sticks, medium-sized sticks and the biggest logs we’d gathered.

As a person who wants to get things done quickly, I didn’t see why we couldn’t just dump all the sticks into one pile.

An Eagle Scout and an engineer, hubby said we needed to line up what we needed first and then build the fire correctly or it wouldn’t last long.

So for years, I gathered sticks, separated them into piles and secretly complained that I was having to do a lot of work when I could just as easily have one giant pile of sticks and pull out what I needed when I needed it.

At first, I tried to light the newspaper on fire and throw some big sticks in there, but the flames went out. After about 15 minutes, I conceded – husband was right. We needed to start with the basics.

So I cleared everything out of the fire pit and built a rectangular base out of medium-sized sticks, just like he’d taught me, and put newspaper on top of that so air could get underneath the paper.

On top of the newspaper, I arranged small sticks and some dried moss. One click of a Bic lighter, and the newspaper caught fire, as did the small sticks. I slowly added more small sticks, careful not to overload the fledgling flames.

I had to admit, having the sticks separated made it easy to add the little sticks instead of hunting through a big pile.

With a nice-sized flame going, I added a few medium-sized sticks – just a few at a time – and watched the fire catch hold and actually burn. In about 10 minutes, we had a nice fire going and we were able to add the big logs.

I relearned a valuable lesson that afternoon.

When you want something that will last, start small, keep going and don’t overload your pile or your life.

Everything starts with a solid, sturdy base, the patience to know when and how to add more fuel and when to add the big challenges.

I have to say the words my husband has been waiting over 30 years for hear, words I’ll readily admit he’s earned numerous times:  “Honey, you were right.”

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I love a mystery.

When my sisters and I visited Charleston, S.C., one of the first activities we signed up for was the midnight walking ghost tour.

We looked in vain, but we didn’t see any ghosts staring out of windows or lurking in trees.

Likewise for touring The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, La. We searched for the ghost girl in the window and for strange etchings on a mirror, but we didn’t see anything unusual.

Despite not seeing anything that would even come close to being classified as paranormal, I always hoped I’d see something other worldly.

I might’ve gotten my wish.

My husband and I were heading to Louisiana for our Cajun Christmas with the Hebert family. We left the Houston area late in the day, so we were driving across the Atchafalaya Basin at night.

The Atchafalaya Basin is the nation’s largest river swamp covering over a million miles of hardwoods, waterways and inlets. The basin bridge is about 18 miles long and allows travelers to cross the basin on a raised highway.

As we were cruising along, I looked up and saw two bright lights in the sky. At first, I thought they were part of a water or cell phone tower because they were too far apart to belong to an airplane.

But I realized they were moving, and I knew cell phone tower lights didn’t move. About that time, I asked my husband if he saw the lights, and he said he’d been watching them for a while.

As the lights got closer, I could see a panel of lights in between the two headlights, and then the lights took a right-turn and disappeared.

“Did you see that?” we said at the same time.

I had my cell phone on my lap but didn’t think I could get a picture to come out at night through the windshield at 60 miles per hour.

As we were trying to figure out what we saw, two more sets of lights appeared to the north, traveling just as quickly as the first set of lights.

That’s when I realized we weren’t seeing an airplane, a weather balloon or a helicopter.

We were seeing a UFO.

We’d seen three unidentified flying objects. I didn’t say they were alien spacecraft – they were unidentified. They were flying and they were objects.

I checked social media to see if anyone had posted anything about seeing lights over the basin.

Nothing.

I checked the news stations.

Nothing.

My husband did a bit more in-depth checking the next morning and read that the state of Louisiana was trying out drones on the west side of Baton Rouge and over the Atchafalaya to check on traffic, but we saw these drones at night over the water.

Common sense tells me that we saw weather drones or aircraft being used by oil companies or the state. Common sense tells me that just because we saw some lights in the sky doesn’t mean there were aliens flying above us.

There’s no way secret activities were taking place late at night over a sparsely populated swamp area where nobody could see what the government was up to.

But the part of my brain that wants to believe in ghosts, haunted houses and unexplained phenomenon in this world wants to believe we saw a UFO.

So I’m calling it like I saw it – check “seeing a UFO” off the bucket list.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Most of us remember standing in the school nurse’s office, trying to read the eye chart. There was a giant “E” at the top, and we did our best to identify as many letters as possible.

Our hopes – having 20/20 perfect vision.

Today is the second day of the year 2020, the start of a new decade, the beginning of a year where we hope we get the 20/20 perfect diagnosis. New research, though, states that 20/20 isn’t really perfect vision, but most of us equate 20/20 with the ideal number at the optometrist’s office.

The internet is filled with prophecies about what’s going to make 2020 perfect. I read these websites with a grain of salt – we all remember when kale was going to be the miracle food.

Didn’t happen.

But it’s still fun to see what’s supposed to be the perfect trends for 2020, even if some of them are impractical.

According to Yahoo, online security continues to be a problem, and our cell phones will be the biggest target for phishing scams. These attacks come from hackers with nothing better to do than try and fleece you out of money.

Those of us who saw “The Sting” with Paul Newman know swindlers are nothing new, and there’s an easy mark born every minute.

People are still trying to decide between fake news and real news. The only way to do so is to follow the source of the story and do your own research. If the piece leans too far to the left or right, it’s fake.

If the headline screams “UFOs are landing now,” it’s fake. If the story contains facts from an unnamed source, it’s fake. If it’s on NPR, prepare to feel bad about breathing. If it’s from FOX, you know what side of the fence the reporter is on.

There’s always a lot of predictions about hot food trends for the coming year. We’ve seen tofu hailed as the next best thing only to fade from people’s memory within weeks.

Cauliflower pizza is supposed to be the hot item, but let’s be real – most people don’t like cauliflower.

The thought of trading a freshly baked flour-based pizza crust for a vegetable crust is sacrilegious unless one is gluten intolerant.

They also predict Korean cuisine will be the next hot food trend. Whether this is a way to pacify Korea and show them we want to play nice is anybody’s guess. Korean food is pretty good. My son and I had a great meal at a small Korean restaurant when I visited Taiwan.

There was a small barbecue pit sunk on one end of the table, and the server brought us raw beef, chicken and shrimp to cook to our preferences over the grill.

Of course, there’s no way barbecue I have to cook myself can ever compete with spicy Texas barbecue, enchiladas swimming in cheese or thick Louisiana crawfish etouffee.

Tall pancakes are supposed to be a hot ticket in 2020. Those look pretty in the pictures, but tall stacks of pancakes aren’t practical.

Tall pancake stacks fall over and there’s no way to cut into them without making a mess. Stick with the saucer-sized ones – stacked two high – and forget the trend.

According to Market Watch, the Impossible Burger at Burger King is available at over 7,000 franchise sites.

If I’m getting a burger, I want beef, tomatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, a generous slab of cheese and dozens of pickles.

At least until I get that report back from the doctor with my updated cholesterol count.

I’m not even going to describe what Architectural Digest believes will be a top trend in furniture.

The day I put a plastic lawn chair in my living room with fake pink fur at the feet, brown velveteen for the seat and arm rests made out of puke-green metal is the day I put plastic wrap on our couches and plastic rug runners on the floor.

In this house, coziness wins out over fashion.

Our brown La-Z-Boy couches are broken in and comfortable, our end tables have survived two generations and I don’t care if the grandkids turn the kitchen table into a blanket fort.

My outlook for 2020 is to keep my sights on what I can see, to keep trying to read that bottom line and to know that 20/20 is good enough.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

It’s the day after Christmas, and if your house is like mine, bags of crumpled wrapping paper piled up under the carport and enough leftovers for a week.

The spirit of Christmas doesn’t have to be end. We need to remember the generosity of some folks in our midst and pay forward their giving spirit all year.

The people in Pecan Grove understand what the holiday spirit is all about.

For decades, families have decorated their yards for the Christmas season, and people drive from all over to see the lights.

We know about this first hand since we lived in Pecan Grove for over 20 years.

Our boys were toddlers when we moved in, and we told them the lights were a Texas way of welcoming us to their midst.

Pecan Grovers are still welcoming, and this year, neighbors outdid themselves. Visitors were welcome to take pictures in front yards. At the “Frozen” house, the owners dressed as Anna and Elsa and greeted visitors every night.

One home encouraged people to take pictures with their yard signs. A neighbor dressed up as The Grinch and handed out candy canes.

But what touched so many was the Facebook Wish List where people in Pecan Grove could nominate families needing a helping hand and receive the help they needed and much more.

Even though we moved, administrator Paul Christy invited me to stay as a member of the Facebook group, and I’ve been reading the incredible responses to people in need.

Sometimes it was a family asking for help, a neighbor with a debilitating disease, someone out of work, a single parent trying to make ends meet. The wishes were granted above and beyond what was asked.

People banded together and gave thousands of dollars in gift cards, donated frozen meals to those unable to cook, donated bicycles, groceries, toys and furniture.

They made connections for employment for those out of work and provided hope for those unsure of where to reach out for help.

Not only was the list of items provided more than what the family asked for, the bounty was made possible by neighbors who chipped in to bring an abundance of Christmas cheer.

That’s what a whole neighborhood can do when they have a mission, but young families, like Coy and Lisa Elliott, also spread holiday cheer.

Our eldest son, Nick, has been friends with Coy since they were in high school.

Coy, his wife, Lisa, and their three sons were part of their church effort to deliver food and supplies to the homeless in downtown Houston.

But the Elliotts went past that Christmas charity.

They found out about three elderly veterans at a local nursing home who seldom received visitors.

The Elliotts went to the nursing home and brought slippers and gifts to these men who served their country when asked and were now in the twilight of their lives with few visitors left to see them.

The Elliotts not only brought smiles to these men’s faces, they taught their sons the true meaning of charity and good will.

I was picking up some last-minute Christmas gifts with my sister-in-law who’s battled rheumatoid arthritis all of her adult life. Things are tight for them as medical bills keep rising, and my brother had to get a new job as his company was closing.

On our way out of the store, my sister-in-law reached over and handed an elderly lady sitting some cash and told her to have a Merry Christmas. I never even thought of randomly giving a stranger a gift, but she did.

She reminded me of an invaluable lesson – to preserve our humanity and to make the world a better place, we need to keep that spirit alive year round, and not just at Christmas.

There will always be those who suddenly find themselves in trouble – if we all reach out together, we can make a positive difference.

There will always be a lonesome person in a nursing home – let’s remember them at holidays throughout the year.

There will always be someone in need. Let’s remember it is truly more heart-warming to give rather than receive.

And let’s keep that holiday spirit alive each and every day of the year.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.