Month: February 2021

I was in my mid twenties when I moved into Gulf Freeway Oaks in Southeast Houston. When I left I was in my sixties and had literally grown up there under the watchful and loving eyes of the most wonderful neighbors. Among them were Bob and Carol Hall, a stunningly attractive couple who like Mike and I had moved into the their home many years earlier as twenty years olds. By the time I arrived they had five sons ranging in age from high school teen to pre-school toddler. We became the best of friends in no time because of their generous personalities and I learned a great deal about parenting and general life skills from them. 

I was a ball of energy back then and often spent entire Sunday afternoons puttering in my expansive yard that was rivaled in size only by that of Carol and Bob. Before long Bob became regular yard buddies he wearing his straw hat to shade his handsome face from the sun and me being silly enough to get regularly burned. He would stop to take a break and have a smoke and strike up a conversation over the chain link fence. He was a quite interesting man so I was often tempted to forget about the work I needed to do and just spend the afternoon listening to stories about his job and his life. We must have repeated that routine hundreds and hundreds of time over the years and so I got to know Bob rather well.

Bob was a true handyman with a garage filled with tools of every sort and spare parts to fix whatever might need mending. He was as proficient in puttering with cars as doing carpentry or putting a new roof on his home. I marveled at his skills and he and Mike often traded home care tips. Whenever we needed anything or were at the point of frustration with a repair Bob would miraculously show up with advice and just the right tool or item that we needed. 

Living in a house built in the nineteen fifties meant there was always something that had to be replaced or fixed. Sometimes there were even extraordinary and unexpected challenges. On one occasion we kept hearing the sound of a meowing cat in our great room. I could not understand how it was possible for it to sound so loud since it had to be coming from outside. I mentioned it to Bob and he suggested that a kitten may have somehow gone onto the roof and then fallen into the chimney for our fireplace. While that sounded a bit bizarre to me experience had taught me not to doubt Bob’s wisdom. He and I traced the sound from the outside and he pointed to the exact place that he thought was the origin of the frightened cries. We took some shingles off the the exterior, cut into the black paper behind it and surely enough there was the tiny creature who was so afraid that she would not allow us to pull her out. 

Once again Bob had an idea. We opened a can of tuna and left it for the kitten to find it. I watched from the great room window as the little creature was led from it’s imprisonment by Mama cat into the open where they both gobbled down the treat I had left. Bob and I immediately resealed the area and then he suggested that we enclose the chimney with chicken wire to be certain that we might never experience the problem again. He and Mike went up top and secured the opening for posterity. 

That was Bob Hall to a tee, a man with a plan for everything and a great neighbor in every way. He was also a wonderful husband who respected his wife Carol’s wishes by never smoking in the house. We’d often seen him rain or shine, hot or freezing cold standing on his driveway or just inside his garage puffing away. More than that though he taught his five sons how to be great men and he encouraged them to follow their own dreams. They went on to become a salesman, a firefighter, a heating and air conditioning repairman, a nurse and a teacher. 

After we moved from the old neighborhood Bob and Carol ultimately did as well. Sadly Carol became ill and died not so long after they had moved into their new home. Bob contacted us to help him with some legal documentation and we agreed to continue meeting regularly because we enjoyed being with each other so much. After that we would meet with Bob at Starbucks and spend hours reminiscing, hearing about kids and grandkids and listening to Bob talk about his role with the Small Business Association and the University of Houston. He had a wry sense of humor that kept us laughing the whole time. One regular joke often repeated was how he rarely went hungry because the “Tupperware ladies” were continually showing up at his door with casseroles and other epicurean delights just to make sure that he was well fed and okay. Since Bob was still a very attractive and sweet man I always believed that many of them may have been hoping to lure him into a more romantic relationships than just friendship but he rarely spoke for long without bringing up Carol. Their’s had been a romance for the ages.

A few years back Bob had a stroke and with it lost much of his capacity for being as entertaining as he had once been. One of his sons told us that Bob did not feel comfortable with visitors and that in fact they tended to make him anxious so we did not get to see him anymore but I always hoped to hear that he had recovered to his old self that we would be able to once again sit for several hours over cups of coffee and tea just talking about a little bit of nothing. 

Bob died during the last week of January. His son said that his passing was peaceful. Somehow his death was a somber milestone for me. I realized that Bob had been the last of a team of four neighbors who had literally taken care of Mike and me for forty years. All of them are now gone and knowing that sent me into a state of uncontrolled sobbing. Bob was like a strong and loving and funny big brother to us. It’s tough to know that he is gone but I suspect that he’s happy to be with Carol again and he’s getting lots of welcome hugs from other neighbors who made it to heaven before him. Knowing Bob Hall was a special privilege that I will treasure until that time in the future when I join him and the others once again. To me he will always be Good Neighbor Bob.

I suppose that I am someone who might genuinely be called a cockeyed optimist. I have always had faith in the innate goodness of people. I believe that we are born innocent and only become evil if we have a brain defect or grow up in a toxic environment. I think that even when an evil person or group comes to power there will always be hordes of individuals with moral courage who are willing to fight for what is right and just.

I am also a realist. I know that even the best of us have imperfections. That includes countries and governments as well. While the United States of America was founded with good intentions the need to compromise to get everyone on board led to beginning our nation with slavery firmly in place. It was a kind of original sin that lasted far too long and should not have taken a civil war to eliminate. 

It would have been wonderful if all of our citizens had embraced the freeing of the slaves as not just a good thing but an act of contrition for the cleansing of our national conscience. Instead we continue even to this day to grapple with truths that we claim to be self evident, that all men and women are created equal and as such are due the same rights and privileges. We have yet to admit in unison and with fervor that in the history of our country Black Americans have been wronged and all too often along with them have been immigrants with darker skin from countries thought to be deficient. 

For a time I believed with all of my heart that we humans were slowly but surely evolving into better versions of ourselves. All too often I have been left to ponder why we so often back slide into selfish racist behaviors, sometimes seeming not to even realize we are doing so. I cringe whenever I hear people being stereotyped and misunderstood. Of late, I am sad to say, there has been more of that sort of thing than I have witnessed since I was a young girl growing up in the Jim Crow south of segregation and humiliation of an entire race of people. 

I hear those speaking of the Black Lives Movement as though the only thing they learned from it is that in some of the places where protests occurred things got out of hand and property was damaged and looted. To listen to them speak one would think that this happened in every single incident and that entire cities were burned to the ground. 

Of course we never want to encourage or accept violence of any sort even that in the name of justice. Those who break the law should be held accountable because they not only create damage to structures and businesses but they damage the message of Black people seeking to let us all know that we still have work to be done to help our brothers and sisters who have yet to reach the promised land of American life. 

It pains my heart to hear that the millions of voices raised to bring awareness to the realities of being Black in America have too often been reduced down to an unfair judgement because of the actions of a few. I wonder if those who turn against the movement because they see it as violent or unpatriotic realize that they are in truth demonstrating one of the main challenges that Black Americans face. It seems that no matter whether Black citizens kneel in quiet peaceful protest or walk through city after city with no incidents some Americans will only view them as trouble makers whose cause is overblown and unworthy of consideration. Many of these same people would argue for hours about the evils of aborting babies but are not willing to hear the cries of Blacks who live in a state of chronic fear. 

If I were able to live long enough to see one thing before it die it would be to finally view the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. I want to see a world in which Black and White Americans walk together in total harmony without prejudice and with a willingness to fully understand the impact that a long history of slavery has had on our society even today. I want to be around when racism is driven away like the plague that it is. 

I am not so foolish to imagine that my wish will come true but even becoming better and better with each new generation would be a move in the right direction. There has been progress but we cannot be content when we see that problems still exist and sometimes they are even promulgated with political propaganda. Until the day we all want to know how we can help rather than castigating those who bring problems to our attention we still have much work to do. 

I want to see us fulfill the promissory note that Dr. King told us must one day come due…

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

February is a funny little month. It tends to bring dreary looking days with grey skies and cold temperatures that keep us inside. The year ahead appears to be long and uncertain in February. Sunny vacations still seem far away. The trees are bare, lawns brown, and flowers mostly gone in February. As we plod through our work days and school days in February it is often difficult to arise in the dark of morning only to return home in the dark of night. February can be a tough month to navigate save for Valentine’s Day, a reminder that love is all around us. 

In many ways February is much like the totality of our lives. There will be dark moments, dull moments, hard working moments that are tedious and difficult to endure. Almost always a joyful time comes along to remind us that what mostly drives all of humanity is love. Love is the way, the truth and the light. We celebrate love even when we may not even know that we are doing so.

Love stays awake all night hovering over a sick child or an aged parent. That same love arises early in the morning to prepare a household for the day ahead. Love prepares our food and then goes to work to provide more of it. Love patiently teaches us how to unlock the secrets of the world and how to be better people. Love mends our wounds and shows us how to laugh. Love accepts us just as we are. Love is our best friend sheltering us from the stings of hate. We find love everywhere, not just in a romantic setting. Love brings us gifts but understands that things are not what matter most for our happiness. We find love in the most unexpected places. 

I suppose that it is fitting that just when winter seems almost unbearable we fill our spaces with images of cherubs and flowers and hearts. We take the time to utter or write the feelings that we have for the people in our lives. We are reminded that love is always among us if only we look for it and demonstrate it. 

Chocolates are a tradition with love because they stimulate the serotonin in our brains. They literally create happiness. They chase away the dull feelings of sadness that lack of sun or isolation sometimes create. Gifts of chocolate are truly gifts of love. 

We witness too much hate in the world. It can be so overwhelming that we begin to believe that it is a more powerful force than love. It is easy to become cynical and to believe that there is really no hope for tamping out all of the negativity, abuse and anger that surrounds us. We want to retreat into our own comfortable worlds and look away from the horrors that exist. It is natural to shy away from trauma. We get enough of it without purposely seeking it out, and yet we see exceptional people overcoming hate with love all the time. They take on the challenge of eradicating hate wherever they find it. 

Jesus was love, but as both human and God he sometimes demonstrated the same doubts and weaknesses that we have. He gave the ultimate sacrifice of his life for each of us but had a brief moment of uncertainty when he asked God to take away the pain and suffering that he endured in death. All of our heroes of love still had feet of clay. We humans are capable of great strength and great failure all within the same lifetime. Our imperfections are part of our DNA, our essence. It is love that provides us with the courage and determination to rise above our frailties. Love has the power to conquer obstacles and to overcome hate.

This February perhaps more than most is filled with dark and foreboding challenges. We can answer the call to love or we can bow under the weight of hopelessness. Now is a time for harnessing the forces of love to become the light of optimism. While life may have taught us to be realistic and maybe even cynical, it should also have shown us how the power of love puts a lie to the idea that we cannot make our world a better, happier place to be. We have far too many models of love making a dramatic difference in the arc of history to believe that there is nothing we might do to contribute to positive change. 

It is February. The world may appear to be dark and dreary but love is whispering in our ears and urging us to use its magic. Look around you. Search for the love. Be the love. Love is not always easy but it is always good. Get to work right now seeking and spreading love wherever you go. 

When I was in high school there was a dance every Saturday night on my campus. If I didn’t have a babysitting job that night I was in the cafeteria swaying to the music. Back in the sixties a young woman had to wait for someone to ask her to dance before going to the dance floor and I was sadly what was then known as a wallflower. I fit that description perfectly because I mostly sat in one of the chairs lining the walls hoping, praying that someone would ask me to dance. Often that did not happen but hope sprang eternal in my heart and so week after week for four years I returned to the scene dreaming of one day filling my dance card and becoming the belle of the ball. 

There was a time when a rather small boy took a shine to me. He was probably no more than five foot three inches and since I was still only four foot eight I was a perfect match for him. He was not a student at my school so we knew little about each other and because the music was always loud we didn’t bother to talk much. Our objective was to just have fun dancing and he was rather talented in that regard. I looked forward to seeing him whenever he came. He always searched for me sitting in one of those chairs, walked right over, smiled and held out his hand as a sign that it was time to take some turns around the room. 

One summer he did not come for many weeks. I began to wonder if he had moved away or found a girlfriend. In the meantime I went through a growth spurt that was literally painful. In only a matter of months I increased my height to five feet six and a half inches. I had become a tall girl over night. Sadly my little fellow had not grown a speck and when he finally came again he rushed over with that cute smile of his not noticing my long legs wrapped around the base of the chair. When I stood up I was three and a half inches taller than he was and his reactions was one of horror. Without saying a word he literally ran away as though I had somehow humiliated him. My days on the chair resumed.

Over the years as I grew a bit less shy I would rise from my perch and saunter over to groups of boys that I knew doing my best impression of flirting. I suppose I thought they might take the hint and dance with me through at least one fast song but they seemed clueless about what I was seeking. Nonetheless I was persistent in my belief that one day someone would discover me.

In my senior year I often depended on the kindness of strangers, young men who came from other schools who took a chance with me. We had fun for the evening and that was all, which was fine with me. All I really wanted was to dance, not form a lasting relationship. Most of the time my partners and I never even exchanged names. 

Before long I was at the University of Houston as a college freshman. I went to a street dance one evening and met the best dance partner ever. We never left the dance floor and I had so much fun. Unfortunately he actually wanted to be my boyfriend and my only desire was to dance. I felt really bad when he put his little sister on the phone to beg me to give him a chance but our dancing days were done. Then I met my husband. 

I was instantly attracted to Mike. I wanted to know all about him and be with him. I had never felt such a magical connection with anyone I had ever known. There was only one small problem. He did not like to dance. While we shared everything else, dancing was not part of our relationship. I married him nonetheless. 

The years passed and we fell more and more deeply in love but there was still no dancing in our time together. I forgot about how much I had enjoyed moving to the music and did not really miss it all that much until things began to change in the more modern world. Suddenly nobody had to ask a woman to dance. She was free to enter the dance floor solo and pick up the beat all by herself. As a chaperone at school dances I would spend the entire night having a ball learning all the new steps to the most current music. Before long my grandchildren were old enough to dance with me. I would kick off my shoes and have the greatest time with them. Then they became older and felt a bit less comfortable dancing with their Gammy. 

One of my all time favorite nights was spent on the roof of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas with a group of fellow educators dancing in the middle of a knot of people just swaying and having a good time. I felt so free and happy that the old ways were gone. I did not need a partner or an invitation from a man to feel the joy that dancing has always brought to me. I celebrated the new ways and wished that my generation had been wise enough to think of just letting everyone hit the dance floor. 

Now my dancing is mostly done solo and I don’t mind at all. Dancing was alway about the joy and freedom of expressing myself with movement. I finally understand that I can enjoy it anywhere anytime. I have finally become a dancing queen.

When I first began college I went out on weekends with my friend Claudia hoping to meet a new guy at the parties we attended. Things always turned out the same. Every young man who approached me wanted Claudia’s contact information. She was at the height of her charisma and popularity and while I loved her like a sister I grew weary of feeling like a fifth wheel and after a time she was busy going on dates anyway. I needed a new partner and that’s where my cousin Ingrid came into the picture. She was attending the same university, had access to a car, and was always up for adventure so we became the new team.

I’ve never known anybody who actually thought that Ingrid and I look even remotely alike but when we stepped out together it created an automatic pick up line. Every single time someone would begin a conversation by asking us if we were sisters. Ingrid always looked more like her dad and it might be argued that I looked like her mom, but in truth I generally resembled my father’s side of the family. Since our mothers were sisters it really made no sense that people thought we were sisters but maybe there was something there that we were unable to see. Anyway it worked like a charm and neither of us outshone the other so we always had a good time meeting new people. We even went out on a couple of double dates.

Our liaison ended on the night of our cousin Alan’s twenty first birthday. That’s when we both met a rather handsome and interesting friend of Alan’s named Mike. He had recently attended Loyola University in New Orleans but had transferred to the University of Houston. He had a preppy look that spoke of someone who came from a different place than our town.

While I was intrigued with him it became apparent to me that he was interested in Ingrid which was fine because I wanted at least one of us to land a possible date with him. Imagine my shock when he called me a few days later. I was so stunned that I asked him if he had perhaps obtained the wrong phone number when he got information from Alan. My question perturbed him because Alan had asked him the same thing in a round about way, wondering if Mike wanted to talk with “the pretty one” or “the smart one.” 

As you might have guessed my mostly male cousins thought of me as “the smart one.” It was a kind of scarlet letter for a young woman back in the sixties. Not many men were enthralled with brains over beauty back then but interestingly Mike had responded that he wanted to pretty one with the short hair which was definitely me. I think I fell in love with him instantly when he told me that. Eventually he found out that he had also selected a smart one, although Ingrid and I joke to this day that he could not have lost because we were both pretty and smart.  

I honestly hated the whole concept of meeting someone of the opposite sex for the first time. I was never particularly good at small talk or being flirtatious. Such moments were actually somewhat painful. Once I got to know someone I was fine but I’m just not good at all with pick up lines or first meetings. I tend to just freeze and quietly blend in with the rest of the room. 

When I was a senior in high school I competed for a four year college scholarship from Texas Commerce Bank. I was nervous about the interview that was part of the process but I was a competitive debater and felt more comfortable with public speaking than having a conversation with someone I never met before. The college counselor prepared me a bit with some possible scenarios so I felt ready for whatever came. Boy, was I surprised when the first question was thrown at me. The panel wanted to know what I did when I went on a date. Aside from the fact that I thought it to be a personal and invasive inquiry, I had never been on a date in my life at that point. I had no idea what to say.

I must have looked like a deer in the headlights as I attempted to fake an answer. I probably would have been better off just being honest but I worried that it made me sound somehow like a freak and so I babbled aimlessly about places we would go and topics we would discuss. It was quite pathetic and as I spoke it felt like slow motion torture. If given the opportunity I probably would have bolted from the room. I was certain that I had eliminated myself from consideration and as expected I did not win.

Times have changed so much since then. Nobody in an official capacity would base judgement for an academic scholarship on a young woman’s dating habits. Not only that, I find that men are less likely to be frightened by a strong, intelligent woman. I suppose that in a boys will be boys world there are still comments like “Do you want the pretty one or the smart one?” but such things may happen less often. Many people also meet through online dating services where all the small talk is already done with the extensive questionnaires that match men and women who have similar likes and dislikes. I think that in many ways meetings in public over coffee or lunch which is popular is also more casual and less anxiety inducing. Lucky for me I met the man of my dreams at my cousin’s birthday party and never had to worry about such things again. Fifty three years later we are happily married with a lifetime of memories having nothing to do with appearance or pick up lines. Life is good.