On my last trip through Louisiana, I came to a complete halt thanks to a traffic jam on the Atchafalaya Basin. There’s no way to exit once you’re on the 18-mile long bridge, and I could feel my frustration growing. After about 15 minutes, I turned off my car, got out and gazed out over the waters, reminiscing about my last visit to the Bayou State.

My husband and I spent a week in Abbeville because it’s near New Iberia, the city where stories about fictional detective Dave Robicheaux’s take place. I’ve loved author James Lee Burke’s series ever since I heard the first book, “Creole Belle” read by the actor Will Patton whose true Southern accent makes Burke’s descriptions come to life. Patton does a masterful job of luring the listener into Robicheaux’s world, and it’s one I’ve entered numerous times as I’ve either read or listened to every single book about the lawman.

My husband’s a good sport and willingly humored my wish to visit New Iberia. One of the highlights was visiting the quaint “Books Along the Teche” bookstore where the friendly and knowledgeable owner personally knows “Jimmie” and understood my fascination with Burke’s novels.

I hoped to purchase a signed James Lee Burke novel, and luckily the bookstore had one. I hugged my book to my chest as we left the shop, and we spent the next few days exploring the sights in Cajun country.

One of our first stops was to the Acadian Village in Lafayette. Their purpose is to preserve early Acadiana heritage and to provide employment for people with developmental disabilities.

Ten acres of farmland were transformed into a quaint Cajun village with authentic homes depicting the lifestyles of the early Cajuns. We walked through each home, marveling at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of those early settlers who found a way to thrive in an often-harsh environment.

The next stop was Jefferson Island where we toured the Rip Van Winkle Gardens. The site featured beautiful flowers and exotic landscaping, and the Joseph Jefferson home reflected what it was like to live at the turn of the century when you had a little bit of money.

No visit to southern Louisiana is complete without crawfish, and we found a great restaurant, Cajun Claws, where the waitress didn’t offer a menu. There was only one choice, and that was hot boiled crawfish. Those mudbugs were seasoned perfectly, and we didn’t leave a claw unopened on that platter.

We stayed at a cozy bed and breakfast, Apartment A, in the heart of Abbeville, and proprietor Debbie Garrot made sure we had everything we needed or wanted. We left that part of Louisiana feeling recharged and ready to get back to reality.

As I leaned on the railing of the bridge and looked out over the swamp, I thought about that trip to Abbeville and understood why Cajuns are drawn back to their homeland. The briny smells of a bayou, the eye-watering scent of Tabasco sauce and hearing that distinctive south Louisiana accent calls Cajuns all their lives.

But now, Texas fills my heart, the grit and determination of the peoples who settled this land making me believe that anything’s possible, from taming oil gushers to maintaining dozens of cultures to creating modern, thriving cities out of mosquito-infested swampland.

In every state, one can trace the roots of those who settled the area and people who need to touch base from time to time with the influences that made them who they are. That pride not only calls us home but gives us the courage to strike out and carve a new path.

After an hour, the traffic started moving, and I climbed back in my car and headed west, leaving behind the cypress trees and magnolia blossoms. I was headed home where a meal isn’t complete without either barbecue sauce or tortillas on the table and the stars at night are big and bright.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

This Sunday is Father’s Day, a holiday where we bestow garish ties, nifty electronic gadgets and barbecue tools on our dads. Heart-felt poems and gushing odes to fathers are plentiful on greeting cards and on social media. Often our ideal image of a father comes from movies, books and television shows.

The gold standard in the fiction world has to be Atticus Finch from the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Atticus is a single father rearing two children in a small Southern town. He stands up for what’s right and disciplines his children when they need guidance. Plus when played by Gregory Peck, what’s not to admire and love.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini.” In real life, Conroy’s father was an abusive drunk who beat his children and terrorized his whole family.

For baby boomers, there’s a variety of dad models to choose from, most of whom didn’t have a wife around to help with the children. Lord knows how that affected my generation. These single fathers include Steve Douglas from “My Three Sons” and Andy Taylor from “The Andy Griffith Show.”

I sometimes wonder how they’d handle the problems in today’s world. Opie never had a drug problem nor did Douglas ever face being unemployed, having his boys run away from home or talk back.

Currently the television show “black-ish” features a strong father who’s financially successful and absolutely adores his wife and children. Anthony Anderson plays Dre Johnson, the father on the show, and he cries when his eldest daughter goes off to college and worries he’s not teaching his children how to survive being a person of color in a mostly white world. Those are more realistic scenarios dads of all cultures and ethnicities face.

Probably television’s favorite father is Phil Dunphy from “Modern Family” who’s a child at heart, loves his family and struggles with being respected by his father in law. Of all the television fathers, I think I like Phil the best.

But as much as I like these programs, the fathers aren’t real. Movies, television and literature can’t nail down how real fathers shape and mold their children. They overlook the life real fathers face – a bloody trip to the emergency room, scrimping and saving for health care, clogged toilets and mowing the lawn week after week after week.

So in no particular order, here’s my list for the characteristics of an effective and good father.

They’re supportive. They back their child as they work toward becoming the best person they can be, cheer them for their successes and show them how to work their way through the failures.

They’re loving. They tuck their kids into bed at night, hold them tight when they’re scared and show and tell their children every single day that they’re special, important and loved. That doesn’t mean they’re softies – they discipline when the occasion requires tough love.

They’re dependable. They work. They come home. They show up. They’re sober. Day after day, month after month and year after year.

They say “no.” They willingly become the “bad guy” and tell their kids that they can’t stay out all night, they can’t do whatever they want and, no, they cannot eat that peanut butter and jelly sandwich in bed.

They’re respectful of themselves, their spouse, their in-laws, their job, their faith, society and their families. That doesn’t mean they’re pushovers – they’re quietly respectful.

They have a sense of humor. They make sure their children grow up with happy memories and they teach their offspring to laugh and roll with the punches when life throws them a curve ball.

They’re human. They admit when they’ve made a mistake, cry at graduations, occasionally burn the burgers on the grill and make at least one home repair job worse by attempting to do it themselves. But their children learn a valuable lesson – don’t be afraid to try, even if there’s a high probability of failure.

So to all the dads out there – and yes, that includes women who are dad in the family – Happy Father’s Day and may your burgers be perfectly grilled.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

I’ve been reading lots of blogs online from women about getting older. Most are from women in their 30s who’ve found a terrific outlet for their feelings — blogging. Back before the internet, I wrote a column when I turned 50 — basically that the higher you climb the ladder of life, the broader your view gets (and, let’s be honest, your hips as well).

Life in your 50s brings an appreciation and acceptance of where you’ve been yet there’s still some excitement as to where the second half of your life will take you. Now that I’m in my 60s, I find there are things I still look forward to doing. As the author states in the original blog, you don’t shop at Forever 21 for yourself — now it’s for your granddaughter whom you fervently hope will have an easier time through those teenage years than you did.

You shop at the “older lady” sections of the stores but that’s okay because you do not give a damn what anybody else thinks. You wear what you like, a fashion style based on living through Birkenstock sandals, hip huggers and go-go boots. You either accept the gray hair or color it and you can dye your hair purple because, again, you do not give a rat’s patootie what anybody else thinks.

Each decade has its struggles and rewards. The 20’s are a time of accepting responsibilities, finding your own voice and figuring out what you want to do in life. The 30s are usually spent raising kids, going to PTA meetings, fitting the lawn chairs into the back of the van next to the diaper bag and deciding if the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with is worth ushering in your 40s. The 40s? A little more relaxing but those orthodontic bills are killers. As is the pain in your shoulder and your left knee.

And that brings us to the 50s, the 60s, the 70’s and the 80s. What I can tell you from this vantage point is to enjoy every single minute of whatever decade you find yourself in. You will never get them back – not that bar-hopping all-nighter you spent with your friends in your 20s, the hours in the ballpark on bleachers watching your child play ball in your 30s, the late-night talks with your pre-adolescent daughter in your 40s or the helping your son pack his clothes for college in your 50s.

Enjoy every single blessed moment because, truthfully, they’re gone before you can say “Steppenwolf” and remember, yes, we were born to be wild. At this point in our lives, that wild means getting real ice cream instead of low-fat yogurt, having a steak instead of baked chicken and wearing your sweat pants everywhere because you do not care what others think. And that, my dear friends, is heaven.

I stood on the sidelines at the Terry High end-of-the-year choir concert with the video camera rolling. Capturing the night for choir director Rhonda Klutts was my primary reason for being there and, frankly, I was running on empty. Walking into the auditorium, my head was swimming with my to-do list, and I wished I was headed home instead of heading to another event.

But I’d promised I’d go, so I reluctantly walked through the doors, telling myself I’d enjoy the music despite being tired and cranky. As the young men and women sang their hearts out, I found my spirits lifted and my batteries recharged.

Music has the power to re-energize us, and when it’s a live concert, the energy’s instant.

I’ve been to dozens of live concerts, the first memorable one being a John Denver performance when I was in my early 20s. I remember sitting in the dark as Denver’s voice washed over the crowd, wondering how anyone’s voice could be so crystal clear in person.

Denver’s performance was funny, moving and incredible, all at the same time. After that concert, I became a life-long John Denver fan, and the song “Poems, Prayers and Promises” still makes me cry.

In later performances, Denver sang “Sunshine” much slower than he did in his early career, and his later version of the song takes on a poignancy that’s missing from the faster, pop version. But even as he grew older, his voice remained crystal-clear, and I appreciated him much more the second time I heard him in concert.

I’ve seen James Taylor in concert twice – once when he was younger and the second when he was older. His voice deepened over time, but that clear, unique sound was still there. Like Denver, he slowed down some of the songs in his later years, and the result was gold.

“Sweet Baby James” was always a favorite, but when “Mudslide Slim” sang that melody all alone on the stage, just him strumming an acoustic guitar with each line slowly delivered to the audience, I was a blubbering fool by the end.

I’ve also been to local music concerts where I’ve been amazed at the talent here in our community. There’s also been a few where I literally winced when the singer was trying to hit some of the high notes, but more often than not, sitting outside underneath a sky filled with stars while being serenaded by guitars, drums and a silky voice is a blissful way to spend the evening.

As I relaxed and leaned back at the high school concert, I paid more attention to the singers on the stage. Some showed a bit of stage fright, but the encouragement of Rhonda Klutts and her assistant Marlayna Shaw was like a shot of adrenaline to those singers.

From my vantage point, I could see Rhonda’s animated face, smiling and her arms up in the air, encouraging those singers to deliver every note from the bottom of their lungs.

By the time they got to “Eagle’s Wings,” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. Not only was the song spot on, this was the last concert for the graduating seniors, the last time these young men and women would sing together on a stage.

I thought about how much they’d learned from their teacher, especially the lesson that music unites and encourages and will stay with them the rest of their lives.

On the way home, I rolled down the windows, turned off the radio and sang “Sweet Baby James” softly as the miles rolled past, my soul refreshed, my spirits lifted, grateful for the troubadours who lift us up in song.

Because, as James says, “singing works just fine for me.”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

I read an article the other day commenting that people should stop saying they hate math or they’re bad at math because that way of thinking discourages young people, causing them to fear numbers. Instead, we should say we struggle with math but we’re always getting better.

My struggle with numbers is like the Geico lizard wrestling Godzilla.

I’ll say it up front – I hate math, I’m bad at math and I’m terrified of math.

It’s easy to figure out why my career path involves letters and words instead of numbers and equations. Writing an essay for school was never difficult, the paragraphs and words coming easily.

Not so with algebra, geometry and math.

For years, I blamed my teachers in high school. My geometry teacher, Mr. Deere, was absolutely awful. He showed up for class after the bell rang, gave our papers back late and spent most of his time sitting at his desk, looking at motorcycle magazines.

My algebra teacher was our head varsity basketball coach. It was like catching fish in a barrel to divert his attention away from equations and over to the game of the week. I remember writing notes to my best friend or reading a book while he dissected plays on the blackboard, the athletes in the room arguing maneuvers and strategy day after day.

In college, I only had to take one math class, and the teacher was rigid and strict. I wish I could remember his name because his ethics about teaching shaped my philosophy about how to be a good employee. He told us he would not miss a day of class because we’d paid for this class, and it was his obligation to be there. Not only was he in class every day, but he was a thorough teacher.

That class was the first time I felt comfortable with math, and I actually made good grades in that class. More than that, I understood the formulas and procedures because he made sure we got it. I left there feeling confident.

After that, I worked as a secretary, and math wasn’t a big part of my job, so that confidence slowly faded away. But my lack of math skills cost me money. I relied on “experts” at the bank and the credit union to keep track of my money and accounts. I couldn’t do my taxes, so I paid someone to do them for me, even though they were pretty simple.

One year, I got a letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating I owed them $500. I panicked and sent the check right in, never questioning their decision. Years later, I got another letter from them, stating I owed even more money.

By that time, I was married, and my math genius husband stepped in. He re-calculated my taxes from that year and deduced I didn’t owe the money. Instead, the IRS owed me a refund plus interest.

He explained the entire process – I pretended I followed the numbers – and said I should sign a letter to the IRS he’d written, demanding interest and my money back.

All I could see was myself behind bars, but I had faith in my husband, signed the document and sent it in.

A few weeks later, I got a check from the IRS and an apology for their mistake.

Math to the rescue.

Being married to someone who calculates numbers in their head as easily as I can sing “Happy Birthday” has been a blessing. It’s also a crutch because I pass over anything having to do with numbers to my hubby.

And my trusty phone that’s absolutely amazing at remembering dates, figuring out percentages when I’m shopping the sales, keeping track of my car’s mileage, timing how long I need to bake chicken, reminding me of important dates and keeping a working list of every phone number I’ll ever need.

Numbers to the rescue.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

            Spring is here. In Texas, spring usually lasts about two weeks and then we dive straight into summer for the next seven months. But it’s technically spring and one of the rituals of spring, besides driving around looking for wildflowers, includes spring cleaning. Growing up in the North, our spring cleaning meant airing out the house after months of the house being bundled up against the snow and sub-zero temperatures. Windows were included in the spring cleaning ritual as were putting away heavy coats, scarves and gloves until cold weather returned. 

            My mom tackled the chore with a vengeance. She’d vacuum the rugs and carpets and fill the clothes line in the back yard with freshly washed curtains, drapes and blankets.

            So whenever I hear “spring cleaning,” the old tapes start playing in my head, and I start making a list of things to clean. I looked online for some tips, and good ole’ Martha Stewart graciously provided a printable spring cleaning list.

            Immediately, I can scratch at least half of her items off my list. We don’t have window screens, nor do we have storm windows. She also recommends waxing wooden furniture with paste wax. Sorry, Martha, but spray-on Pledge has worked just fine for 40 years.

            She does mention dusting the ceiling fan blades. Since ours seldom stop spinning and they’re so high up, it’s hard to see if there’s dust on there. However, that could be an item I’ll add to the list. I’ll get to that task right after I find the ladder.

            Which brings me to Martha’s recommendation for cleaning out the garage. My husband is extremely organized and neat, so there’s no need to add that to my spring cleaning list. And since the garage is so neat, I’d hate to mess it up by dragging the ladder out.

            So I suppose the ceiling fan blades can wait.

            Vacuum and shampoo rugs are next on the list. I’ll vacuum but our carpet isn’t that old, so I’ll defer that chore for another five years.

            Martha also recommends washing comforters and drapes. We don’t really have harsh winters so there aren’t heavy blankets to wash and hang out on the line. Besides, we don’t have a clothes line and I don’t have a clue where to buy clothes pins other than an arts and crafts store. So I quickly scratch those off the list.

            As far as washing curtains, I have the perfect excuse – we don’t have any. Thanks to allergies, I took down all the curtains years ago. Faux wood blinds do quite nicely, but I have a feeling there’s a nice layer of dust on all of them.    

            I took a closer look and, yep, there’s a layer of dust on every single blind. But if I start cleaning those, I’m only going to stir up a lot of dust and that’ll send my allergies into overdrive. Maybe it’s best if I just leave that dust there as a sort of protective sealant.

            Same goes for dust on the furniture. That fine layer of dust protects the wood, or so I’ve convinced myself, so I’ll just overlook that particular spring cleaning job.

            Scanning Martha’s list, I find I can cross a lot of things off without a second thought – clean the refrigerator coils – I don’t even know where those are – and defrost the freezer. Once the words “no-frost” came into my vocabulary, I’ve never looked back.

            The chores I will put on the list are updating the first-aid kit and tucking the warm-weather clothes out of the way. As a Texan, that’s about three items of clothing in my closet. Easiest job on the list.

            So there’s my spring cleaning list. Now I think I’ll get out there and enjoy those milder temperatures before the 98-degree days arrive. That should be in about a week.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

             

            “Fly the friendly skies” may be the most ironic slogan in the airline industry these days. Two major disruptions happened on United Airlines flights recently. In the first, Dr. David Dao was dragged off an airplane after he refused to give up his seat so crew members could board.

A couple, on their way to their wedding, were told to get off an airplane because they were in seats other than the ones they reserved and supposedly refused to go back to their purchased seats.

             In both instances, the circumstances become a “he-said-she-said” fiasco where one claims the other was belligerent, obstinate and caused a disruption.

            We learned quite a few lessons from these two incidents. First, nobody at United Airlines seems to have paid attention in the “Customer Relations 101” course. Secondly, they let incidents get out of control and then made wrong decisions to rectify the fiascos.

            Maybe the folks at United Airlines need to talk to kindergarten teachers about class management because the parties involved exhibited behavior similar to 5-year-old children.

             A typical kindergarten scenario: Child A sits in the blue seat where Child B had been sitting until he got up to get a drink of water.

            Child B returns and begins to whine that someone is sitting in their blue seat. Child A stays in the seat and ignores the whining until the child starts tugging on the chair.

             At that point, a war has started, and the referee – the teacher – has to decide who’s right – the blue seat was technically Child B’s or Child A took advantage of a situation.

               In the adult world, we’d call Child A an opportunist.

                We’d call Child B out of luck. For grown-ups, possession is 9/10ths of the law.

                     But we’re talking kindergarten, a place children go to learn and conflicts are handled a little more delicately.

                     The teacher might ask both children to state why they think the chair belongs to them. Then she might suggest they take turns in the chair, and both children would immediately start whining that the chair belonged to them.

                       The teacher might then try distraction to see if she could get one of the children to lose interest in the chair by offering up a different prize. That could be the empty dress-up play center or to be the special helper, a title always tempting to a 5-year-old.

                          If those tactics don’t work, then the teacher might say neither child is sitting in the seat which gives her two crying children instead of one. Ultimately, she makes a deal where both children might not get exactly what they wanted but they walk away happy.   

                      Back to United Airlines. They lost track of the kindergarten rules. Unhappy children make for an unhappy class. Unhappy passengers make for an unpleasant flight and instant notoriety on social media.

                    Biggest mistake — United didn’t offer a big enough incentive for the passengers to either leave the plane or move to another seat.

                 People on airplanes want to get to their destination. They want to sit in the blue chair. But when something shinier, the dress-up play center or $500 cash, is offered, most people will take the prize and everybody walks away satisfied if not entirely happy.

                    I was on a Southwest Airlines flight when the attendant announced that the plane was overbooked. She began offering cash, but she did so while hamming it up like Monty Hall on “Let’s Make A Deal.”

                    By the time she got to $300, she’d also thrown in some, in her words, “cheap” airline blankets, a box of airline peanuts, a photo op with the captain and a voucher for free drinks and burgers in the airline bar. In 15 minutes, people were laughing, but some took the bait and the flight quietly proceeded as planned.

                   She made giving up the blue chair, in this case the airline seat, worthwhile.

                 So, United Airlines, if you want to solve your customer relations problem, start talking to some kindergarten teachers.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

          Easter is a religious holiday to celebrate the Resurrection. But there’s an evil part to the holiday, one that lurks on the store aisle dedicated to everything Easter – Mini Cadbury Eggs. These devilishly delicious treats are solid milk chocolate covered with a crispy sugar shell. And not cheap chocolate either. Mini Cadbury Eggs are rich, velvety chocolate with a just-right thin candy shell covering decadent chocolate, and they’re Easter’s answer to crack cocaine.  

          Sure there’s other Easter candy, and they all have their own merit. There’s jelly beans in every color and flavor. As kids, we seldom thought to wonder about the flavor of the jelly beans, but every once in a while, we’d eat one with our eyes closed and guess the flavor. Cherry or strawberry was easy – those were red. Lemon jelly beans were yellow and coconut or pineapple — two flavors we ignored when there were red strawberry jelly beans to inhale – were white. The licorice candies were immediately swapped out of my unsuspecting little brother’s basket for all his red and orange ones. Grape turned out to be, surprise, the purple ones, and orange was, well, orange. But the green ones were a mystery.

             We couldn’t think of a green fruit, so, to the Hebert siblings, green jelly beans tasted green, and that was the flavor we assigned to all green jelly beans.

              The Easter Bunny always included a chocolate bunny in our baskets, tucked into green plastic grass along with the Easter eggs we’d dyed the night before. Nestled in with the jelly beans were handfuls of M&Ms and assorted chocolate balls wrapped in colorful foil. Those chocolate balls always had a waxy taste, so I’d toss those into my unsuspecting sister’s basket while stealing her orange jelly beans. Not the green ones, though because those tasted, well, green.

               The Easter Bunny learned our preferences over the years and adjusted accordingly. My sister didn’t particularly like chocolate, so the bunny left her a white chocolate rabbit. I preferred peanut M&Ms over the plain M&Ms, so the Easter Bunny knew to dump more of those in my basket than my brother’s.

                 But no American Easter basket is complete without a package of iconic marshmallow Peeps tucked behind the chocolate bunny.  For those who’ve been living on a desert island, Peeps are a blob of marshmallow covered with bright yellow sugar in a shape that somewhat resembles a small chick. But they’re more than a replica of a cute Easter icon. Peeps are required in an American Easter basket, even if you don’t like them. But adore them people do.  One Website claims that 5.5 million Peeps are made every day, and they’re still hard to find on the shelves the closer we get to Easter Sunday.

                  Peeps originally came in bright yellow because they were supposed to resemble chicks. But modern candy lovers have a variety of colorful and creative Peeps to choose from, including coconut or blueberry Peeps dipped in chocolate, vanilla Peeps dipped in white fudge and there’s even a suggestion to pair strawberry Peeps with moscato rose wine for the grown-up Peeps connoisseur.

                   This year, there’s one variety of Peeps that could give my Mini Cadbury Eggs a run for their money – chocolate mousse Peeps dipped in creamy milk chocolate.

                    Here’s hoping the Easter Bunny drops both in my basket this year. That way, I can answer the age-old question – which came first – the Peeps chick or the Cadbury egg by eating every one of them the bunny leaves in my basket. Happy Easter!

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

            On Thursday, I started watching the weather radar for the Houston area. We were planning a trip to see our son and his family, and I wanted to keep the weather in mind. Spring is a fickle time in Texas, so I was hoping I’d see a forecast of sunny days and no rain.

            That wasn’t the case.

            The weather channels called for a 100 percent chance of showers with two to five inches of rain over the weekend.

Words like “Armageddon” and “shelter-in-place” were featured along with big red circles of damaging rains and winds radiating out from the middle of Houston almost all the way to San Antonio.

            I prayed, I bargained, I made a pact with the powers that be to change the forecast. During a conversation with my son, I told him we might not be able to come if the weather was bad because I didn’t want to drive through a torrential rainstorm with his four precious children in the car.

            For two days, I fretted and worried and watched the weather channel. On Saturday, my son and I decided the weather was going to be too bad so we’d get together another time.

In a way, I was relieved because we wouldn’t have to face the flooding and treacherous conditions on the roadways.

            On Sunday morning, I awoke to some sprinkles.

            “The worst is yet to come,” I thought as I looked at the weather radar for the hundredth time that morning. There was a huge line of squalls to the west of us, but nothing to the east.

            Breakfast came and the sprinkles stopped. Lunch came and the sun came out. I thought about going out and running errands, but the weatherman’s promise of Armageddon kept me inside.

            Throughout the afternoon and evening, I’d look out the window and kick myself for letting fear put the brakes on my plans.

             All my life, I’ve let the “that might happen” stop me from doing what I wanted to do. I’m not talking about driving to the beach when a hurricane’s blowing in from the Gulf. It’s the threat of “that could be bad” that always gets in my way.

             The next day, I saw a post on Facebook that my sister’s house in Alexandria, La. had flooded. The storm that bypassed us hit them like Thor’s hammer, and they unexpectedly got over three inches of water in their home.

               Surprisingly, Diane said they were lucky – they’d have to replace the floors and the carpeting, and she needed new floors anyway. There’s a photo of Diane and her husband in their front yard wearing rain boots, standing in ankle-deep flood water with big smiles on their faces.

                They were smiling through the catastrophe because, as my sister said, there was nothing they could do about what happened. She said crying wasn’t going to dry up that water or get her carpets pulled up and she had to look on the positive side.

                  After hearing her laughing that they could still run the air conditioner and sit on their couch – even though there was an inch of rain underneath their furniture – made me ashamed that I’d worried myself out of time with my family because of a “what if.”

                   The “what if” happened to her and she accepted what happened, rolled up her sleeves and got to work without whining or complaining.

                   I’ve always thought my sister was incredible, and I’m convinced she’s more than that. She’s also a realist who taught me a valuable lesson – when life gives you lemons, cut those babies up, put them in a pitcher with a little bit of medicinal vodka and crank up the music.

                   And keep on living.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

The industry is promising a better-than-average crawfish season this year, and this Cajun girl couldn’t be happier.

I grew up in the North where my connection with Louisiana food was mostly through stories I heard from my Southern relatives. It wasn’t until we moved to Louisiana when I was a young teen that I became acquainted with Louisiana seafood.

The marshlands around Lake Charles were our classroom as my dad and our Uncle Howard taught us how to catch dinner from the bayous. The lesson started with wading out into shallow waters with nets and bait.

They taught us how to tie the bait to a triangular net and how to carefully check those nets every half hour.  We were thrilled when we’d pull up a trap and see mudbugs and crabs nibbling on the bait because we knew there was a crawfish boil in our immediate future.

The first time I went to a crawfish boil, I didn’t know what to expect. There was a big gray metal washtub in the back yard filled with swarming crawfish. Some had big claws while some were missing either one or both claws. My dad explained that those were the ones who’d lost the fight, but they would still be good eating.

Between the cooks, there were friendly arguments about every step of the cooking process.Seasoning was the first argument. Some put the seasoning on once the crawfish hit the pot. Others seasoned the water before adding the crawfish. Some added Tabasco sauce. Some sprinkled Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning liberally into the water. Most agreed, however, that cayenne pepper is required.

We were a family that added potatoes and corn-on-the-cob in with the crawfish. I remember the first time I bit into the corn and feeling my mouth catch on fire from the red pepper. My dad laughed and told me the potatoes and corn suck up the seasoning so be careful about taking a big bite without slathering it in butter first.

While we waited for the crawfish to cook, it was the youngsters’ job to cover the picnic tables with old newspapers and make sure there were lots of rolls of paper towels. We also put out small bowls to mix ketchup and Tabasco sauce for those who liked their crawfish extra spicy.

Once the seasoning debate was settled, then it was a heated debate about whether it was better to dump ice on the crawfish to stop them from cooking once they’d turned a deep shade of cinnamon or dump them on the table and watch the steam rise.

We didn’t care what method the grownups used as long as there was a giant pile of crawfish to dig into. When the crawfish were cooked to the chef’s degree of satisfaction, the cooks would dump piles of crawfish along the middle of the table, and everybody pulled a pile toward them.

Our Cajun relatives believed we needed to know how to properly peel and eat crawfish. Uncle Howard taught me how to grab the tail, squeeze the sides, twist it and then carefully pull out the meat.

It was a lucky day if the tail came out intact and an even luckier day if we could take the pincher on the claw, twist it and wiggle the meat from the claw. If we were hungry, we’d put the claws to the side to tackle after the crawfish were all gone and we were waiting for the next batch.

The best parts of a crawfish boil are the Cajun music playing in the background, the hum of the propane tank heating the water and the sounds of cards hitting a table while the grownups play boo-ray for nickels.

My dad and uncle aren’t with us anymore, but their spirit is with me every time I sit down to a platter of freshly cooked crawfish and silently thank them for the Cajun life lessons.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.