I looked over at the table behind my desk and saw a stack of mounted photographs that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. On top of the photographs were some well-read Leon Hale novels, and I immediately knew where they’d come from – Russell Autrey, one of the best photographers in the state of Texas.

            Russell’s the Herald’s former head photographer, and he retired a few years ago. Back when we both worked full-time for the newspaper, we were usually the first ones in the newsroom in the mornings – Russell because he loved to drink his coffee in relative quiet and me so I could leave on time to pick up my boys from school in the afternoon.

            Holding a cup of coffee in his left hand and the computer mouse in the other, every day Russell would pull up photos, crop and edit them for the newspaper and the Website.

With each picture, Russell offered me advice about what the photographer did right or wrong, and I soaked up every word.

            After he finished his coffee, Russell picked up his camera and headed out the door to find a picture for that day’s paper. I don’t know how he managed to find a picture every day, but he did. And every one was a masterpiece.

Sometimes the photo would be of children playing in the park. Other days, he’d take a beautiful picture of people engaging in every-day life.

And that’s what’s so amazing about Russell – he captures the every-day in an extraordinary way.

When my Aggie boy moved into his own house, he asked me to help him find decorations with a Texas slant. I immediately knew who to call – Russell. He said he’d gather some photos for me, and his choices were spot on.

The first one is of an old house and a solitary windmill out in the country, both surrounded by dainty yellow flowers. Russell said he took it back in the 1980s. Thirty years later, the picture looks as fresh as it did the day he snapped it.

The next photo is of a grizzled cowboy standing behind a mesh fence. Only one eye is visible behind the boards in the fence, but Russell captured that cowboy’s steely gaze. The lines on that old man’s cheeks had to come from hours spent in the saddle under the brutal Texas sun.

The next one is of a lone rider in the middle of a canyon. The majestic mountains and sprawling desert practically overwhelms the man and his horse, and Russell perfectly captured that lonesome feeling.

When I got to the next picture, I recognized it immediately. An older cowboy is riding a white horse, herding cattle. The cowboy sits tall in the saddle, and his hat has seen its share of the sun, wind, rain and cold over the years.

This picture has been used in magazines throughout the county, and I’m so thrilled I have an original print. The photo reminds me of the story Russell and I once did on the new breed of cowboys in Fort Bend County. That experience remains one of my favorite feature story adventures with Russell.

The last print is a black and white, and it’s an old house that’s barely standing –paint barely visible on the weathered boards. Russell knows how to put just the right people in the photo, and this one has two riders – one wearing a modern baseball cap and the other wearing an old cowboy hat.

As I looked at the pictures, I remembered all the stories Russell told me over the year. My son grew up listening to Russell’s tall tales, and now he’ll always have a reminder of one of the best raconteurs and photographers in the state of Texas. Thank you, Russell, for allowing us to have you in our lives forever.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald where I first met the fabulous Russell Autrey.

           

Football games are underway, and that not only signals autumn but also the start of the fall semester at colleges and universities.

As young adults make their way to the financial aid office to see if and how they can swing a college education, I thought about how difficult it is to choose a career path these days.

There are so many choices, especially for those who love computers and know their way around the Internet. I came of age in the generation where what you chose after high school was what you did your whole life, usually in the same town where you were born.

You worked for a company for 30 years, retired with a gold watch and then sat on the porch, shelling peas, waiting for the grandkids or the Grim Reaper.

Times have changed. Today, government statistics state that millennials will have 15 to 20 jobs over the course of their working life. They can easily go from one career to another and never think about that gold watch.

There are times I wish I could go back to those early days and experiment with different careers. When I left high school, I had all kinds of ideas about what I wanted to be.

I was from a small town, and I wanted to see the world, but I didn’t have any money to finance that dream.

One career offered a chance to earn a salary and see the world – becoming a stewardess. Back in the 1970s, stewardesses – we now call them flight attendants – looked like they had a jet-setting career.

Television commercials featured stewardesses in cute dresses, hats and high heels traveling all over the United States. Some even traveled to exotic, romantic locations like Paris, London and Rome.

Sure they had to serve coffee and deal with travel-weary passengers, but the end result was seeing the wonders of the world for free.

I was living in a working-class blue-collar town, and I wondered what adventures were out there besides an oil-refinery job.

When I told my parents I wanted to work for an airline, they weren’t happy.

“Stewardesses are nothing more than glorified waitresses,” they said.

We know this isn’t true — flight attendants work hard, stand on their feet and might have to deal with a dangerous person. Still, my parents wanted me to go to college instead of right to work, so I went to college and then to work for a reliable company where I could retire with a nice pension.

The choice was safe. The choice was conservative. The choice was what was expected.

I always wondered how life would’ve turned out if I’d been brave enough to travel the world. Who could I have met? What could I have seen? Was Paris really as mysterious and beautiful as it looked in the magazines?

But the “what-if” game is a dangerous one and tricks me from facing my “what-is” reality which is pretty good. I’ve learned to accept how things are and stay in the present. The future is unwritten and the “right-now” is what I make it.

Besides, I wouldn’t change my life for anything. I wouldn’t be a mother to my three wonderful sons. I wouldn’t have the joy of finally having a daughter in the family and I wouldn’t know the deep love of being a grandparent. I wouldn’t have a spouse willing to sit on the porch and shell peas with me while we wait for the grandchildren to visit.

Maybe I can still travel the world. It’s never too late to start down the path toward realizing one’s dreams because plans, and life, change.

And as they do and the older I get, the more I realize I better start down those paths now rather than later.

I wonder if Southwest Airlines is hiring.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

When I woke up on my 15^th birthday, the only gift I wanted was to get my driver’s license. I remember going with my grandmother to the DMV office, and I was waiting at the doors when the instructor unlocked the door.  

I knew the rules of the road because my dad had been teaching me how to drive since I was 10 years old. I always sat right next to him, and he’d pass on his driving knowledge, especially on long trips.

     He told me to look at the interstate as a slow-moving play and I needed to pay as much attention to what was behind me as to what was in front of me.

There weren’t that many cars on the road back then, so it was easy to plot out where I needed to be so I wouldn’t get stuck.

 “Just play it slow and think out your moves,” he said.

That was then.

This is now.

And, sorry to tell you Dad, but the rules have changed.

There is no playing it slow on the interstate. Driving on any major thoroughfare is similar to Luke Skywalker trying to blast the Death Star as he barrels down a narrow corridor with enemy ships all around.

Cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses and SUVs zoom along I-10 at a minimum of 70 miles per hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic. One slam of the brakes results in a chain reaction of dented fenders a mile long.

People don’t use their turn signals. In fact, they usually change three lanes at a time at break-neck speed. Turn signals are obviously optional accessories on their vehicles, and there’s never time for other drivers to use logic to figure out what to do – it’s survival of the quickest.

     One of the moves I always dread is merging into traffic. When I first got my license, I could count on the generosity of other drivers.

Cars on the interstate either moved over to the left-hand lane when somebody was entering or slowed down to let the merger in.

Not today.

Most of the time, the incoming cars either hit the gas and zoom in front of you or they go too slow, causing the impatient drivers behind them to swerve around the slow vehicle and cut in front of you.

I can grumble all I want, but there’s no getting around the importance of vehicles in a Texan’s life. Our cars aren’t simply gas guzzlers to take us from Place A to Place B. They’re our home away from home.

We talk on the phone in our cars, check our email while at red lights, send text messages when we shouldn’t and some of us eat most of our meals in the car.

 We have family meetings in the mini-van on the way to soccer or baseball practice, and we hold Bluetooth phone meetings on the commute home.

We usually don’t mind spending that much time in our vehicles because they’re pretty comfortable – leather seats, air conditioning and sound systems that resemble Carnegie Hall.

Even better, today’s car is smart. In fact, it’s smarter than most people.

Your car knows the temperature inside and outside, when the engine’s about to overheat and the tire pressure on all four tires at all times.

Your vehicle will nag incessantly if you leave the keys in the ignition, the oil’s too low or if you left the headlights on. Better yet, the car just turns those off for you.

But some driving skills never go out of style – pay attention to what’s around you, courtesy goes a long way and always check the rear-view mirror.

And most of all, when you merge into traffic on I-10 or Highway 59, may the Force be with you.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

School starts in about a week for most of our youngsters. Even though I don’t have any young ones at home, I remember the excitement as summer wound down, knowing they’d be in school all day long.

Because I’m no longer up at 6 a.m. fixing school lunches, running frantically down the street in my slippers with a forgotten lunch box or searching for a non-existent blue and red pencil on the school supply list, here’s some advice for parents to help make those first few weeks a little easier.

First, no matter how you approach your child’s lunch, you’ll get it wrong. Either they didn’t like what was on the cafeteria’s menu, they dropped their tray on the way to their table or they didn’t like the sandwich you packed them – even though it was their absolute favorite the day before.

Secondly, if you have boys in third grade and older, do not put notes in their lunch box. Especially notes where you sign your name with pink hearts and smiley faces.

If your child takes a lunch to school, do your kid a favor – pack some junk food so your kiddo can be the top trader at their lunch table or just enjoy a treat. Sometimes, a Little Debbie cake goes a long way toward a smooth school day.

We all have questions when they come home, and we all get the same answer – “I don’t know.” If you ask the all-encompassing “how was your day” question, you will get one of two answers – “fine” or “horrible.”

Both will leave you with more questions than answers. Does “fine” mean they made friends, had a good time at recess and their best friend remembered they were their best friend?

Or does “fine” mean “don’t ask me any more questions because school was so wretched, I can’t even talk about it.”

Worse is the “horrible” answer. If your child is talkative, you’ll have 30 minutes of complaining about everything from the stupid note you put in their lunchbox – “only babies get notes from their mom” – to how stupid the kids are, how stupid recess is and how stupid school is in general.

You can’t fix stupid so ask questions that will put a smile on your child’s face and get you an answer. How about “so who picked their nose in class today?” Trust me, you’ll get an answer to that question.

At the very least, the question will lead to a discussion of why your child should not pick their nose in class and the importance of washing their hands on a regular basis.

Some children are natural talkers. My boys liked telling me who threw up in class, who said they had to throw up in class, that they were the one who threw up in class and the teacher said she was going to throw up in class if anybody made one more throw-up remark.

Taking them to school sounds appealing. You’ll have a picture of your little darlings piling into the car with smiles on their clean faces, their hair brushed and all supplies neatly snuggled in their backpacks.

Reality is quite different. If you can get everybody into the mini-van, you won’t get out of the driveway before somebody yells that they forgot their lunch, their homework or their backpack.

As you wait for said child to run inside and get the item, you’ll notice nobody brushed their teeth or their hair. One child will probably be wearing the same clothes they wore the day before, so that child has to run in and change.

On the way to school, you’re driving as fast as you safely can, all the while giving all the children a lecture about being on time, the importance of choosing their clothes the night before and that their inability to remember things makes everybody late.

You’ll screech into the school parking lot, everybody will pile out without a backwards glance and you’ll breathe a sigh of relief. Then you’ll hit the “play” button on your iPod and listen to the entire “Hallelujah Chorus,” a smile on your harried face.

And then realize you have 180 more fun days just like this one in front of you.

 

Denise Adams’ email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com.

“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.”

Recently my mom and I were on the couch, sharing a blanket on a rainy night, when we came across one of our favorite movies:  “An Affair to Remember.”

We’ve seen that movie a thousand times, but we still tuned in for the last part of the film because it’s the best part. It’s when Nickie Ferrante finally figures out why Terry McKay didn’t meet him at the top of the Empire State Building.

He realizes she was too proud to tell him she couldn’t walk and she didn’t want to be with him unless she could stand on her own two feet. Today, all he’d have to do is call her cell phone or check her Facebook status to see what really happened.

Maybe that’s why my mom and I are huge fans of movies from the 1950s. Movies like “Madame X” and “Imitation of Life” were unrealistic but they made us believe that love could conquer everything.

The late Nora Ephron must’ve grown up with the same playlist as she brought “An Affair to Remember” back as a major plot in the 1993 film “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan play the star-crossed pair, Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed. In the movie, Annie and her friend, Becky, are obsessed with the movie. At one point, Annie and Becky mouth the dialogue along with the actors and admit they’ve watched that movie too many times.

Mom and I said the same thing as we recited, word for word, every line in the last five minutes of “An Affair to Remember.” And, just as we did 50 years ago, both of us sniffled and teared up at the end – the music swelling, Nickie hugging Terry, knowing they’d live happily ever after.

Well at least until the credits stopped rolling.

Because let’s face it – Nickie Ferrante is a painter in the movie, and we all know most artists are starving.

Terry McKay, who was hit by a car on her way to the Empire State Building resulting in her not being able to walk, somehow managed to get on that couch at the end of the movie without a wheelchair in sight.

But reality doesn’t count in the movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. They all have beautiful people, convoluted story lines and sappy endings.

Today, people say we need darker, more realistic films that reflect the current times.

As a result, someone thinks having the most wholesome character in comic-book land, Superman, fight one of the most popular good guys in the D.C. universe, Batman, is a great idea.

For this I’m going to plunk down $9.50?  No thanks.

When I watch movies, I’m looking for inspiration or a few laughs.

And why?

Because we live in a world where people down the street turn out to be terrorists that kill innocent people and mothers shoot their beautiful teenage daughters in their front yards.

Where major airlines get shut down seemingly for no reason — conspiracy theorists can’t post their rantings fast enough — so we pile on the panic.

Pardon me if a little escapism is what some of us need from time to time.

So my winter won’t be cold. I’ll have memories of snuggling up on the couch with my mom, watching Terry console Nickie and the audience with the promise “If you can paint, I can walk. Anything can happen, don’t you think?”

I’d like to think that yes, in this crazy world, something good can certainly happen.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

For a woman, walking across a parking lot after the sun goes down can be scary. The sound of strange footsteps behind us makes it easy to picture a stalker with a knife or gun, ready to rob or rape us.

Most of the time, that person is unaware their presence is frightening. I once confronted a young man who was walking too close, and he was shocked that I’d think he meant me harm.

But that’s what happens with unintended consequences.

My son and daughter-in-law were the victims of unintended consequences when she was shopping in their home town. She and her friend were at the huge box store when they realized a lone man was following them.

When they left, he left, and they saw him get in a truck and pull out onto the same road they were on. Frightened, they tried to lose him on the way home, taking a different route.

When they finally got home to their small farm out in the country, they ran in and locked all the doors and windows.

Throughout the rest of the night, vehicles drove slowly by their house, a few even coming into the driveway, until my son scared them off. They called the local police who didn’t seem to think this was a big deal.

But my daughter-in-law was terrified. They have four small children, and there’s not a lot of traffic around their home. They decided to stay up all night and guard their home, their children and themselves.

They called the police again the next day, and a young deputy wondered if the people were looking for Pokemons.

And that’s exactly what was going on.

Seems my son’s house was the original site of the post office in that area back in the early 1900s. The people behind “Pokemon Go” put one of the more desirable Pokemons in my son’s back yard, never checking to see if someone lived there.

The unintended consequence of putting a Pokemon on their property caused my son’s family to be terrorized for almost two days.

People were getting pretty bold trying to catch the Pokemon, even driving onto their property and trying to sneak behind their house and into the yard without thinking that they were trespassing and scaring the people who lived in the house.

They finally found a hotline number to call to take their house off the “Pokemon Go” site, but they couldn’t get the company to remove their property from the game. Their request is “under review.”

So now my daughter-in-law has to constantly capture the Pokemons, wait for them to regenerate and capture them again.

The unintended consequences of a “game” has taken this young family hostage and won’t let go. My son had to miss work when this first happened because they didn’t know who was stalking their house, and he was going to protect his family and property.

Before this game started, they never thought twice about letting their children play in the back yard, climb the trees near their garage or ride their bikes.

Now my son and daughter-in-law have to worry about strangers coming onto their property day and night, all because they want to capture a Pokemon.

For those who forget that their actions have consequences, think before you act and have the decency to change a game or a fad when it negatively affects innocent people. 

So no “Pokemon Go” here.

It’s “Pokemon Get Out and Stay Out.”

 

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

Denise Adams’ email is dhadams1955@yahoo.com.

Just stop it.

Stop it right now.

Those were the direct orders I issued to my two youngest sons whenever they were fighting. Which, when they were growing up, was at least once a day.

The bickering was usually over small things – “he’s staring at me!” to more substantial accusations – “he broke my Wolverine guy!”

After one major dispute, paying for broken staircase spindles and spending a few afternoons sanding, painting and replacing the broken ones pretty much put an end to resolving differences with body slams.

In today’s explosive climate of hate, prejudice and bigotry, perhaps stopping the violence and retaliations could boil down to three simple words – just stop it.

Nancy Reagan tried something simple back in the 1980s in her war against drugs. Her slogan was “just say no.” Even though people laughed, that’s not bad advice.

People will say this idea, too, is naïve, and perhaps it is. But the highfalutin ways of spending billions of dollars in arms to scare others into not bombing a democratic society hasn’t worked.

So maybe we need to try something within our communities, families and in the groups we belong to and get to the root cause of the hatred. Look at the rhetoric being spewed and stop it.

Instead of looking for ways to inflict pain and suffering on innocent people so the “guilty” will pay, why not look for peaceful solutions that, after all the bloodshed, just might work.

Those who wear the uniform, if you know of anyone on the force who targets minorities, tell them to stop judging someone by the color of their skin or their accents because their prejudices are costing innocent lives.

Those who feel they’re being targeted because of the color of their skin – you might be right. But that won’t keep you alive. What will is establishing communications between law enforcement and our neighborhoods so everybody understands we’re all on the same side.

Nobody wants to be robbed.

Nobody wants their car stolen.

Nobody wants their son, daughter, mother or father arrested and sent to jail. Let’s work together to make sure that those who choose to make bad decisions are reprimanded.

Not just those born into poverty.

Not those who put their lives on the line to protect and serve.

Not those whose skin color is different than ours.

People are tired of reading that innocent children, fathers, mothers, teachers, secretaries and laborers were killed because some mentally unstable person decided to show America, France or England a lesson.

Instead of looking for a knee-jerk reaction that causes untold harm and havoc to people who had nothing to do with the carnage, find peaceful ways to establish trust and acceptance between the countries.

Even as I type those words, I have serious doubts we’ll ever find a solution. I never thought my sons would stop fighting, but they eventually did when they understood the word “brother” did not mean “enemy.”

That only came when they decided to look at each other as human beings and potential friends. Older brother learned that younger brother had guitars he could borrow and was willing to run errands for him.

Younger brother learned if he stopped annoying his older brother, he’d be asked to go along on shopping trips and was included on Nintendo game nights.

By getting along, they both benefitted. As a bonus, they didn’t have to put up with their mother breaking up fights, punishing them, yelling at them, threatening them and losing privileges. Life was a lot easier when they learned to get along.

Maybe some basic parenting could work in the real world.

So just stop it.

Stop the bombing, the hating, the retaliation, feeling like you have to live “an eye for an eye” and understand when we all get along, everybody benefits.

Mostly, everybody lives.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

 

I’ve said goodbye twice this week. Thank God they were not permanent goodbyes, but they were farewells, knowing I wouldn’t see that person again for quite a while.

The first was to my mom. Even though we talk every day on the phone, it’s not the same as seeing her sitting at my kitchen table, working the newspaper’s crossword puzzle, a cup of coffee nearby. 

I watched her as she worked the puzzle – in pen, she’s that confident – and knew to treasure these mornings. Soon she’d be back home, both of us going about the routine of our lives. So I savored every moment of the week she was here.

The next goodbye was to my eldest son, Nick. He’d flown in from Taiwan for a quick one-day stayover before jetting off to his step-brother’s wedding in Cancun.

On his way back through, he had a seven-hour layover in Houston, and I wouldn’t have missed an opportunity to spend time with him for anything.

He arrived on the day I came back from Mom’s. Before leaving her house in Louisiana, I hugged her one last time in the driveway, sniffling after I turned the corner, knowing I’d miss having her all to myself, hating to say goodbye. 

But I knew I had a hello waiting for me in Houston with Nick during his layover. He’d arranged to have dinner with friends, and I didn’t want to intrude. So we spent two hours shopping and then had to say our goodbyes.

He hugged me so tight, I couldn’t catch my breath. But that was okay because I was squeezing him back with the same force.

I smiled as big as I could, told him to have a great dinner and to call me when he landed. He drove off with his friends, not seeing me boo-hooing as I drove away in the other direction.

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. They start when we’re a baby. One day, we’re big enough for a big-kid bed, and we feel so grown up.

Mom and Dad, on the other hand, feel a pang of sadness because their little one is taking steps toward being independent and not needing parents as much.

There’s the first day of school. Every year, I took a picture of my boys getting on the school bus with fresh haircuts, new socks and shoes, and a slightly worried smile on their faces.

I remember saying goodbye to them, waving until the bus was out of sight, and then following the bus to make sure they got off and into their classrooms safe and sound. I’d wait around until I knew they’d said “hello” to the teacher, and then I’d leave.

They thought I was being ridiculous, and maybe I was, but it was hard to let go to their needing me.

One of the hardest goodbyes was when they left for college. I knew nothing would ever be the same again once they checked into that dorm room.

They could come and go as they please, attend class if they wanted or sleep the day away. So when I hugged them goodbye and drove away from the campus, I knew I was saying farewell to much more than their physical bodies.

I was saying goodbye to their childhoods.

But they were saying “hello” to their adult lives. Instead of crying, I had to smile because the best, for them, was yet to be. And that’s the way life is – a goodbye on one end means a hello on the other.

Now when we say goodbye, we give each other hugs and say “love you” before breaking away and going our separate ways.

And look forward to the next hello.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

We were late for our connecting flight and made it to the gate minutes before they closed the doors. It wasn’t our fault – our originating plane was late leaving the Houston airport, giving us less than 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight in Phoenix.

On Southwest Airlines, there’s no assigned seating, so my husband and I found ourselves in the very back of the plane and on separate rows. I sat between a middle-aged man with his iPod buds firmly planted in his ears and a young man punching away on his phone.

At least the flight would be quiet, I thought, as I settled in and took out my paperback.

After a while, though, I needed a break and decided to watch the landscape below us. We’d long left the flat lands of Texas, and mountain ranges stretched out below the plane.

The business man was sleeping, but the young man next to me was looking out the window, just like me. He was wearing a ball cap and a plain T-shirt, and he reminded me of my sons.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Portland,” he replied. “I’m meeting my dad there and we’re heading out on a trip down the coast, just the two of us.”

That was more information than I normally get on an airplane these days. Before iPods, laptops and iPads, people usually chatted with the people sitting next to them on airplanes.

Today, what’s on an electronic device is more appealing than a live human being in the seat next to us. But this young man was willing to interact with me, and so we started talking.

Over the course of the next hour, I found out Joey wasn’t some dumb Millennial. He was a college student studying business and marketing. He hailed from Las Vegas, Nev., but wanted to get away from the glitz of Vegas.

“I didn’t go far,” he said with a laugh telling me he attended school in Arizona. “But it was a good break from home.”

He told me he and some friends were at the front end of a brand-new business venture. The excitement was evident in his voice as he described their business of setting up machines to dispense ballerina shoes in casinos.

He said he always noticed the girls who worked in the casinos would walk around barefoot after their shift. They had to wear high heels while on duty, and they couldn’t wait to put on comfortable shoes.

He thought it would be a neat idea to offer soft shoes to anybody who had to stand on their feet all day, or all night long, and so he drew up a business plan, patented it and they’re now in the fine-tuning stage.

Joey was quite excited about his venture, and I marveled at his enthusiasm and willingness to embark on a business venture at the age of 23. So many young people are interested in what’s on their cell phone, what Beyonce’s up to and they haven’t a clue about what’s going on in the world.

I realized I’d sorely misjudged this young person. He had brains, ambition and a willingness to follow his dream. This summer morning, Joey took a chance on a stranger, hoping she’d listen to his dreams and perhaps see the same possibilities he saw.

That’s a big chance to take, and I was grateful he’d talked to me. The flight was over before I knew it, and I wished him well on his endeavor.

“Maybe one day I’ll see your machines in airports and casinos all over the place,” I said as we were retrieving our carry-on luggage.

“I sure hope so,” he said with a smile and wished me a good day.

Little did Joey know, my day was already good because of him.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Forty-nine young men and women.

      Dead.

      The reason? A madman shot and murdered them with no feeling or remorse. He systematically killed innocent people before police were able to put an end to the rampage.

      Our first reaction is to fight back. We did that after 9/11 and where did that get us? In a never-ending war in the Middle East and terrorists still vowing revenge on us.

       Sure we killed Saddam Hussein, but another radical stepped up to take his place. When that one’s gone, another will take his place. The list of angry, bitter, hate-filled assassins ready and willing to kill Americans is endless.

      So we decide to search for reasons to peacefully end the situation. In a war with radical terrorists, to back away and do nothing is to show cowardice and weakness.

      More than public perception, Americans don’t want to back away from a fight. We were reared with mythical heroes like Batman and Indiana Jones who fought back and got even. They didn’t cower and they always won.

      There’s no easy answer nor is there a short-term answer to ending terrorism. We have to look at where these terrorists are learning to hate, and that’s in the home. It’s where our core value system is formed. Children reared in homes where parents live compassionate lives, help their neighbors and always strive to make the world a better place usually turn out to be that type of adult.

      Children who grow up in homes where hate and intolerance are taught as a direct order from God are almost impossible to reteach. First of all, God is always right. Secondly, Mom and Dad are always right.

      Each generation decides to change the way their parents think, and mine was no different. I grew up in the 1960s. That was a tumultuous time when young people balked at what their elders taught them – Negroes were property who didn’t need an education, drink from different water fountains and stay poor.

      Minority parents taught their children that an education was their way out. Some preached violence but most taught to patiently and stubbornly stand up for what’s right.

       Many white kids listened to what black leaders were saying. They rode the buses with people of color and stood up to their parents.

       The young generation consistently chipped away at the belief that minorities were sub-standard Americans. They pushed to change the way someone of a different culture, color or faith was viewed in America.

      Blacks and whites went to school together, and young children learned that a person is more than the color of their skin and more than the higher power they worshipped. They discovered friendship crossed cultural and racial boundaries and that they had more in common than they thought.

      They all dreamed of a better life. They all made wishes on shooting stars and they all grew to understand that the only way change happens is when it starts within people’s hearts and grows from there.

      The talk of getting even and showing power and dominance grows louder and louder, and it’s no wonder why candidates who scream for erecting fences along our borders, isolating ourselves from the world and attacking others first are popular.

       But the words of Mahatma Gandhi still ring true – “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

        Let’s hope we can continue to search for peace while we can still see.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.