All It Takes Is A Little Love

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”  Henry David Thoreau

From second grade through my senior year of high school I walked to school. Rain or shine, warm weather or cold I sauntered through the neighborhood early each morning throughout the school year. On especially cold days I often timed my jaunts to coincide with one of my friends riding to our mutual destination with her mother. More often than not, they would stop to offer me a lift for the greater part of the journey and I would quite happily join them in the warmth of the automobile. With the exception of those frigid times I was quite content to begin my day quietly consumed with my own thoughts because for the most part I am a soul who prefers to be alone in the first hours of the day. 

I used to tell people that I am not a morning person but that would be an inaccurate statement because on most days I arise from my slumbers before the first rays of sunlight begin to awaken the world around me. I enjoy the quiet solitude that allows my brain to slowly adjust to the hubbub of people setting off for work and buses arriving to carry children to school. I want only to listen, not to engage either my ears or my voice in conversation. It is as though I must carefully prepare my introverted personality for the assault of the sounds and commotions of a typical day. 

When I was working I usually had a rather long ride to work in the solitude of my car. I preferred getting up early enough to beat the traffic and to make my way to my classroom without encountering too many people. I saved my chattiness and energy for my students and used the extra time before my duties began to prepare my classroom for the lessons that I had planned. Somehow with luck I always ended up in a classroom far away from the office and the gathering places of the other teachers and the students. I enjoyed the peace and quiet of my outback locations. 

It was in those mornings that I found my kindred spirits but we all knew not to bother each other. There was an unspoken rule that demanded that we do nothing more than nod until the first bells called us out of the comfort of our dimly lit classrooms into the hallways to greet our students. Some of my colleagues had refrigerators, microwaves and coffee makers in their classrooms that allowed them to prepare breakfast that they slowly consumed with the lights turned down as low as possible. We were like little mice hiding in our nests until we had to scurry when the crowds formed outside our hideaways. 

Whether in the time that I was a student walking to school or when I had become a teacher with a routine that allowed my head to clear, once it was time to perform my duties I transformed into a chatterbox of extraversion. My early morning routines allowed me to have my cake of silence and eat it too.

Now that I am retired I enjoy a life without hectic but quiet dashes into the outside world each morning. Instead I sit in my recliner sipping on my tea while solving puzzles from The New York Times and wishing my Facebook friends greetings on the days of their births. I read articles and make sure that my blog is posted on multiple sites. By the time my husband comes in from his slumbers I don’t mind that he switches on all the lights that I have avoided for hours. I am ready for whatever challenges may come either scheduled or unexpected. 

I love walking in my neighborhood but for quite some time I have been limited in how far I have been able to go by two knees filled with arthritis and devoid of the cushioning that made walking so wonderful in my youth. Now that I am three months beyond my total knee replacement in one knee I look forward to longer and longer journeys on foot.

Times have changed since my youth. Nobody lives with their windows open anymore so I do not hear the sounds of life greeting me from each home that I pass. Few children play outside like I did so I rarely seen another person. When I do they often simply nod and pass as they listen to music or podcasts with their AirPods. The world is all mine to encounter as I see fit. I hear the birds and smile as the occasional dog barks as I go past. Sometimes I glance up into the sky when a plane flies over on its way to the airport or crane my neck when a firetruck or ambulance whizzes past me. Mostly there is a calm silence embracing me just like when I was young and strong and able to walk for hours without even resting. 

The morning person in my psyche loves the slowness of my retirement and days when I have nothing planned. Sometimes I simply revel in walking slowly with no real destination and no need to hurry my steps. Just being outside in our beautiful world is all that I really need to nurture the quiet moments that I have always seemed to cherish. What a blessing! 

A yearly report from the Kinder Institute at Rice University indicates that the citizens of Houston, Texas are more anxious than ever about the economy. While in the past mostly low income respondents indicated anxiety about their financial situations, this year such concerns have moved to include middle class citizens as well. Most of the worries center around inflation and the high cost of food, clothing, gasoline and medical care. In addition layoffs at companies are at an all time high. Not since the nineteen eighties when there was an oil bust in Houston have the comments indicated so much worry about the future and the worriers appear to be coming from a wide range of individuals from differing socio-economic backgrounds. 

I recall the economic slowdown of the early nineteen eighties quite well. I had finally earned a bachelor’s degree in education and was excited about landing my first full time teaching assignment. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and had been inducted into the prestigious international honor society for education, Kappa Delta Pi. My professors recommended me to many principals who interviewed me as a courtesy. Unfortunately so many people were leaving Houston in the hopes of finding work elsewhere that there were actually too many teachers. On graduation day only one person in my graduating class had secured a job and hers came from her father who was the superintendent of a local school district. 

Such is the horrific situation of many college graduates who will be donning their caps and gowns this month only to realize that there are no jobs for them. Some are enrolling in masters programs in the hope of a brighter economic outlook ahead. Sadly for some their financial situation will be less than it might have been if they were able to find work right now. 

I have heard of young people with STEM degrees in majors like engineering and computer science who have sent resumes to over eighty companies in the hope of landing an interview and a job. Only one year ago their futures looked so bright. They had excellent grades and boasted internships that would normally have sent recruiters vying for them. Now they are in a panic or have decided to settle for work unrelated to their majors that will pay them far less that might have otherwise been the case. 

In my own experience back in the eighties I found myself looking for any teaching position that I might find and stumbled upon a job to teach math to sixth, seventh and eighth graders in a private school. While I felt fortunate to find anything my salary was less than half of what I would have made in a public school. In addition the timing of my inability to find a position int public education resulted in less of a pension down the road as well as locking me out of qualifying for spousal Social Security until Congress passed a bill in Biden’s last year as president. The financial hit that comes from such unlucky timing can follow an individual through an entire career. Such is what many college graduates of 2026 are facing. 

Sadly the economic problems include people who have been working for decades as well. Companies are sending pink slips to folks in spite of glowing compliments for their work. According to the Kinder report lots of Houstonians are wondering how they are going to make it even if they have managed to keep their jobs. Gasoline, childcare, food, utilities and so many expenses are keeping them awake at night. 

Why does this matter? Because our nation is paying for a war that has resulted in oil companies boasting double the profits over what they had last year. Small businesses affected by the original tariffs saw their bottom lines shrink and now they wonder how long it will take to get relief from the increase in tariffs for the materials they had to purchase to keep things going. In other words the economic situation is a mess at the same time that our president and members of his party seem to think that our nation needs a four hundred million dollar ballroom that most Americans will never see on the inside. While the people are budgeting and cutting back. our federal government is spending money like someone drunk on their own self worth.

In 2024, the United States had the strongest economy in the world in spite of the difficulties of the pandemic. Only a year and a half later all of that progress has been frittered away while programs that actually help citizens continue to be slashed. People worry that there will be a recession and that only the very richest among us seem to be riding the wave while everyone else feels as though we are drowning. 

It is time for Congress and our president to seriously stop the bleeding. We have to assess what is needed and what is frivolous. It’s important that we keep our best trained and educated citizens in the workforce. It would not take much at this point to tip the economy into a free fall and for some that has already come. As James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” It’s time for our leaders to all focus on our very real cost of living concerns.

Last fall my husband Mike and I visited London, Scotland and Paris. It was a hastily created trip designed to celebrate Mike’s victory over cancer. I was awaiting a total knee replacement that would not come for many more months, so to say I was limping all the way would be an understatement. It did not take long for the two of us to realize that walks to and from tube stations to the various sights were out of the question for me. Our solution was to surrender to the idea of catching rides from Uber that left us on the doorsteps of the sights that we wished to visit.

Those Uber rides ended up being one of the more fascinating aspects of the trip. The drivers were more than ready to engage in friendly and informative conversations as we rode around town. We soon learned that London is attempting to make all public transportation in cars and buses gasoline free within the next few years. Laws require taxi and Uber drivers to switch to hybrid or electric cars with those hybrids eventually being phased out as well. As a result we enjoyed test rides in a wide variety of electric cars from Tesla to Mercedes Benz.

Among the most interesting electric autos were the BYD electric models from China. I have to admit that I was rather surprised by the comfort and luxury of the cars from BYD which seemed to be the best made of all of various brands. Not only were they incredibly luxurious but their cost was much lower than other brands according to the drivers. Soon we were seeing BYD automobiles almost everywhere that we went.

Just this week I read that BYD automotive had invented a charging system that is as fast as pumping gasoline into a car. It is rather exciting to imagine traveling down the road and spending only a few minutes recharging for the next leg of the trip. The innovation of BYD automotive is rather stunning, especially since I had no idea that they even existed before that trip to London. 

As I pump sixty dollars worth of gasoline into my truck I find myself wondering why we are so adverse to taking advantage of the expertise and low pricing that BYD has given to drivers all over Europe. Our country is not only far behind the idea of weaning ourselves from the use of gasoline but blatantly against the idea of using more and more electric cars. We act as though doing so would be impossible and yet it is already happening across the pond. Surely we would do well to wake up to the fact that alternative ways of providing energy are the wave of the future while we cling to our old ways of sticking with fossil fuels. 

There is something rather prideful and perhaps even a bit ignorant about being so unwilling to investigate alternative ways of living. We all hate the cost of the fuels that keep us moving and living well but when provided with alternative ideas we are reluctant to even try the new ways of doing things. Additionally we are unwilling to have real competition by creating tariffs that make it certain that we will be mostly bound to products created in the United States. 

In modern times there is a world market in which different nations offer their products but we have turned away from the idea of participating in that freedom. Instead we pay more for everything than we did a couple of years ago and we turn our backs on innovations that are not American made. In the meantime much of the world is moving forward and away from fossil fuels that pollute the air that we breathe and are becoming more and more rare and hard to produce. We even go to war with nations who have an abundance of such things making our day to day costs rise. 

My brother has Parkinson’s disease and his wife has a number of health problems as well. For well over two years they had to depend on family members and Uber drivers to get them from one place to another. Recently they purchased a self driving electric car and are now feeling free again. Life has suddenly become fun again as they are able to travel anywhere they wish without having to wait until someone is available to take them around. It has transformed their lives in more ways than one because when the price of gasoline spiked after Trump embarked on a war with Iran they were getting their fuel from electricity for a much lower cost. 

Instead of investing in foreign wars that rarely lead to positive changes Americans would do well to begin trying alternative ways of living. Our nation should be investing in research that will free us from the need to use energy from fossil fuels. We should see more and more wind farms and solar panels lighting up our homes and businesses and schools. We need to be sharing ideas with other nations and bringing down the cost of electric vehicles. Creating charging stations that take the same time to charge as filling a tank should become as important as building a transcontinental railway once was. The future could be so exciting and promising if only we were willing to invest in new technologies instead of pouring money into wars. 

It’s time that we looked toward world wide cooperation with each other for the good of human kind. It is time to live in peace on this earth with the idea that we are all the same and each of us is deserving of a comfortable life. That never happens with force or tariff wars. We are at our best when we work together for the betterment of all. 

PBS and NPR have survived in the Houston area because of generous donors who appreciate the high quality of the productions featured in both the television and radio programing. I depend on both types of media to provide me with information and entertainment that might not otherwise be available from stations committed to wealthy owners and advertisers. I often tell people that if I had to choose a single outlet for my viewing and listening pleasure it would be these two icons of fair and honest communication. 

I am a particular fan of programming on PBS like Masterpiece Theater and Frontline. Of late I have watched the new offering of The Forsytes featuring John Galsworthy’s sweeping saga but my favorites are the incredible real life stories featured on Frontline. I eagerly await each new topic knowing that I will learn so much from the insightful reporting that is the hallmark of the Frontline franchise.

Not long ago I spent a breathtaking two hours viewing 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a stunning look at a treacherous attempt by Ukrainian soldiers to retake a tiny village that had been overtaken by Russian soldiers. It was one of the most harrowing looks into the horror of war that I have ever viewed. I wanted to run away from what I was seeing at the same time that I was unable to look away and understood that I had to watch.

The route to Andriivka used by the soldiers lay along a once heavily forested area that was only two thousand meters long but may as well have been two thousand miles long given how difficult it was for the soldiers to inch their way to the once lively village. The long and dangerous push is the crux of the documentary that captures the spirit of the Ukrainian army and puts a personal face on the soldiers hoping to free their country from Russia. 

I can’t think of a single war movie that is as emotionally wrought as this documentary captured by Ukrainian film makers. It is a stunning vision of both the hell and the honor that Ukraine has endured for four years of fighting a war that was not of their making. It puts a deeply human commentary on the devastation and struggle that has been the daily reality of everyone in that war torn nation. It keeps the horror of that struggle front and center even as some silently question whether it would ultimately be better just to cede some of the land to Russia and call it quits. 

During the two hour film we get a personal glimpse into the psyches of the soldiers and the bravery that has been foisted on them. Nobody wanted this war. Nobody expected this war and the toll that it has taken on the people of Ukraine. Everyday is as difficult as the slow movement down the two thousand meters to the village of Andriivka. Lives have been forever changed and places on the map have been obliterated save for the ruins that stand where thriving communities once lived. 

I was stunned by the youthfulness of the soldiers, baby-faced young men who have set aside their aspirations to fight for their freedom. I saw my grandsons in their earnestness and fears. Some will live. Some will die. All the while the interest of the rest of the world in the Ukrainian tragedy seems to be waning. The one time alliance from the United States is gone with the presidency of Donald Trump. The only card the people of Ukraine have is their determination to be free. Like the soldiers of the American Revolution they are fighting a mighty power that has an almost endless supply of men to send into a war that they do not really understand. It is the story of David and Goliath all over again, but will the true heroes still be standing at the end?

While it is admittedly difficult to watch 2000 Meters to Andriivka I strongly feel that all of us need to steel ourselves to see what is happening in a place that we may not think matters to us. Looking away is too easy, too uncaring. Everyone in the world should be aware of what we are asking Ukraine to endure so that Putin does not realize his dream of recreating the USSR. Every decision that our nation makes should consider how we might support the brave souls who simply want the freedom from domination that our ancestors gave us with their victory over the powerful army of a long ago king. It should be in our natures to do whatever we can for a nation as determined for freedom as we have always claimed to be. 

Right now we have given the advantage to Russia. The war with Iran has made Russian oil a valuable commodity that fills their coffers with funds that will keep the war going indefinitely. Our withdrawal of help for Ukraine is the wrong move at the wrong time. The selfishness of “America First” seems to be a sham when we turn around and start our own war and upset the balance of powers in ways that will benefit the worst among us. 

Real Ukrainian heroes are offering their lives for the very freedoms that we have come to take for granted. Watch the documentary and then tell my why we should simply leave Ukraine to become a pawn of Russia. I suspect that when you witness the bravery and determination of the people of Ukraine you will surely change your mind.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the right of the state of Texas to require every public school classroom to have a display of the Ten Commandments. The posters are directed to be placed in the front of the room and be large enough so that everyone can see and read them. While this new ruling from the state legislature may seem harmless on the face of things I propose a few problems that I see with this situation.

The first problem is one of space and logistics: I have always been a mathematics teacher. My classrooms have had either large blackboards or white boards dominating the front of the room. Any bulletin boards near the front, if they even existed, were rather small. In almost every school where I worked we were also told to place a poster outlining class rules at the front so that they would be easily seen by every student. I wonder how both the Ten Commandments and the class rules are going to fit the allotted space. Will class rules have to take a back seat to the ten commandments or will teachers have to use some of the board space to take care of this dilemma? While this is a small problem it is nonetheless very real. Space inside any classroom is limited and much of what teachers display focuses on subject matter. If there is to be a site for descriptions of preferred behaviors the offerings need to be small enough to leave room for all of the required bulletins.

The second and most serious problem is what to do if students ask questions about the Ten Commandments poster: According to the ruling teachers only have to post the Commandments. Theoretically they do not have to discuss them like they do with the class rules but years of experience tell me that students will indeed have questions that may be difficult to either ignore or address. My understanding is that the Protestant rendering of the ten commandments will be used even though they are slightly different from the Catholic and Jewish versions. What will a teacher do if a students points out such variation and wants to know why the Protestant version was used rather than the other two? What will a teacher say if a student whose religion is not Christian asks who the one God is supposed to be and who are the false gods? Obviously the posting of commandments from a religious source sets up an uncomfortable situation that will no doubt be challenged by students. 

The third problem is that from a educational point of view the Ten Commandments will create a diversion from the content of lessons. A mathematics teacher has a very rushed schedule for delivering all of the knowledge and skills that the students are supposed to learn in a given school year. Taking time out to justify a religious poster detracts from the main purpose of the school. Students will most certainly want to know why the beliefs of only one religion are being prominently featured in the classroom. Those of the many other faiths will no doubt feel as though they are being ignored and perhaps even being subjected to unwanted pressures to accept one way of thinking. I suspect that teachers will have to allow for uncomfortable and distracting protests and discussions from students and their parents. 

I know that there is a naive belief that posting the Ten Commandments is not an effort to influence young people’s spiritual beliefs but my own life experiences tell me that their will be individuals who will earnestly attempt to go a step further in favoring one religious group over another. I have many times seen devout souls promising to allow those not in line with their beliefs to be left alone only to push them to change over time. 

In two very personal instances one of my Catholic daughters and my Catholic granddaughter ended up feeling very uncomfortable because fervent protestants felt the need to push them to change their beliefs. In both cases subtle pressure was slowly ratcheted up until they were literally being told that they risked eternal damnation if they did not conform to the “true faith.” How are we to be assured that every single teacher will adhere to the Constitutional requirement regarding freedom of religion? One small breach of this right can potentially lead to big trouble. 

I very much believe in God and I have done my best to follow the Ten Commandments just as they were taught to me in Catholic school. I had religion classes every single day for twelve years. I went to mass on Sundays. My faith is deeply embedded in my beliefs but mine was a choice originally made by my parents and later confirmed by my own decisions. This kind of choice should only be the domain of parents and each individual. No child should be subjected to any particular faith in a public school setting even with a seemingly generic poster at the front of the classroom. There are too many differing personal beliefs to consider if we are to be fair. Will we provide the same kind of respect to all faiths? Will our classrooms be fair by displaying the tenets of every single religion? Will we allow agnostics and atheists the ability to post their views? If we cannot be fair for all then we should not be willing to cross the line of public versus religious education. Only parents should have the authority to make spiritual decisions for their children and once those children are of age it should become their choice. 

In fairness to all, posters derived from the core beliefs of any religion need to be removed unless they are part of a study of all religions of the world in a history class. I cut my educational teeth on a system that respected all faiths. We were not allowed to pray during the school day but a teacher was permitted to gather with like minded students before or after school to pray or read the bible. We allowed certain religious children to stay seated without question during the Pledge of Allegiance. We knew that some of our Muslim students would be fasting at different times of the year. We had students wearing required clothing associated with their faiths. It was a mutually understood protection for each and every student. We left religious education to the parents. I still believe that is how it should be.