Author: Sharron Burnett

I enjoy cooking but not so much for myself. You would never believe it to look at me, but I don’t really care that much about food. I would be quite content eating the same things over and over again. My staple would be one of those big fat roasted chickens from Costco that would last for a week once I surrounded it with simply steamed vegetables and fresh salads. When I cook it is mainly for my husband who enjoys food and trying new recipes as much as I like writing, reading, traveling. So I have a number of cookbooks and I search magazines and the Internet for new ideas include in my cooking repertoire. 

I don’t think that I have ever actually purchased more than a handful of cookbooks for myself and yet my shelf is filled with a great variety of culinary guidance. I enjoy searching the pages for ideas when guests are coming to my home but I’m not that enthusiastic when it comes to preparing my daily offerings. I’d rather spend my time puttering in my garden or walking around my neighborhood. Much like my father-in-law I mostly eat to stay alive and if left alone I sometimes forget to feed myself altogether. 

I find preparation for special occasions to be delightful in spite of my lack of normal lack of interest. I flip through the pages of my various volumes to find a main dish around which I then build a bounty of side dishes. I cook up a storm using all of my pots and pans and kitchen gear. I turn on music that fits the theme of my menu and I fairly dance while ingredients bubble and boil on my stove and inside my oven. I create a kind of bacchanal of delights from soup to dessert. Then I watch with great joy as my guests devour my creations. 

Of late it has become more and more difficult to prepare food for such occasions. There are so many different dietary trends now that I struggle to create fare that will make everyone happy. Invariably I see someone eating more salad than anything, a sign that his/her diet is more restrictive than what I have prepared. These days I have to plan for the vegetarians, those going full on Keto, the Weight Watchers and the low carb sugar free crowd. Then there are the older folks who no longer want salt in their food. 

At the same time there are the folks who still enjoy a roasted beast of some variety and search for my macaroni and cheese as though it is the holy grail of dining. If I remove desserts from the menu I see my guests searching for something to satisfy the sweet tooth. If I over estimate how many final courses I need I am stuck with them for weeks after the event. The balancing act of satisfying everyone is becoming more and more like walking a tightrope two hundred feet in the air with no safety net below. I am never quite sure how much or how little of any item to prepare. My roasted Brussel sprouts may go begging one time and be the object of a fight the next. Finding the universal sweet spot is not as easy as it once was. 

I certainly have enough cookbooks to satisfy the demands of many different appetites. I have heart healthy and diabetics texts along with the culinary secrets of famous dishes from Brennan’s of New Orleans. The cookbook that I inherited from my mother was printed during World War II when there was a shortage of many common ingredients so it includes recipes that eschew things like sugar and eggs. Perhaps my biggest challenge these days is finding something substantial for the vegetarians. While I myself would be quite content eating nothing but plant based food for the remainder of my life I am not really familiar with things like “burgers” made without meat. I have tried tofu and its consistency makes me queasy so I really do not wish to include it in my cooking but I want to provide a nice source of protein from my anti-animal feasting friends and family members. I suppose my next purchases must be a really good vegetarian cookbook.

One of my brothers has solved the mysteries of dieting. At one time he was morbidly obese and we worried that he might keel over at any minute. He decided to take charge of his situation and began with surgery designed to curb his appetite. His was a model experience and soon he began shedding the pounds. He lost his desires to eat twenty four seven and followed a food journey of moderation without eliminating any particular kinds of ingredients. When he coupled his efforts with daily high intensity exercise he hit an ideal weight and every aspect of his health and appearance improved. He manages this while still using salt and sugar and eating whatever he wants in small quantities. Like me food is no longer the focus of his thoughts and desires but he is still able to enjoy a few luxurious feasts now and again without guilt. 

The United States is a nation of food plenty and cooking shows that have also made our citizens some the heaviest country in the world. At the same time much of our population has an obsession with being healthy that drives them to a point of thinking about little else. Somehow we often miss the mark when it comes to moderation in all things and yet we tend to understand that if we are to be fit for a lifetime the middle road is most probably the best way to go. 

I once watched an interview with Julia Child who was notorious for her use of rich ingredients in her cooking. She did not hold back from better and cream and fat but she insisted that for most people such dishes were not harmful if consumed in reasonable amounts. Portion size is the key and too often our glutinous tendencies lead us to placing heaping mounds. When something is truly delicious we tend to go back for seconds or eat until we almost feel sick like the Romans of old who gorged on feasts until they were vomiting. 

My brother has successfully found the right ways of eating and exercising. It took him decades of yo yo dieting and on again off again binging followed by deprivation to realize that he had to get a grip on his habits. Food addiction is real but with the proper help it can be curbed without giving up every treat that we have ever savored. More and more we are learning that it is about getting in touch with the reasons why we eat the way we do and adjusting our habits to a level of moderation. It’s not easy but there are wonderful cookbooks that help with the process. I should know. I have dozens that are filled with delights depending on an individual’s needs. I suppose that cooking in the name of health is enough of a worthy project to inspire my altruistic instincts. It’s time to relearn the joy of cooking for health and see how it goes.  

I may be seventy two years old but I do my best to stay current with trends. I use a smartphone, hold Zoom classes with my laptop, make use of services from Alexa and Siri, read news from across the globe, use my hotspot to post blogs when I am traveling, try to stay familiar with the evolving parlances of our language, watch the popular shows and even listen to modern day music rather than just sticking with the oldies. Still, I cling to many of the old ways. A stranger walking through my home would be able to guess that it belongs to an older person. One of the biggest give aways would be my cherished collectables and the books that occupy every room in my house. 

I do have a Kindle that I enjoy when I am traveling but whenever I am stationary I prefer the feel of an actual book. I have a tendency to fold down the corners of pages that I want to revisit and I am not above underlining passages or placing thoughts or annotations in the margins. Sometimes I even use post it notes as tabs to lead me back to sections of the book that I find remarkable. I learn best by seeing and doing so I need to be able to feel a book in my hands to get the most from the words on the pages. The book itself becomes an extension of my brain.

Now and again I attempt to narrow down the number of volumes that I own. Otherwise I would soon run out of room for all of the titles that crowd shelves and tables and even drawers. Sadly I often find myself searching for a volume that I too readily gave away and wishing that I had kept it rather than being so eager to cull it from my collection. Like shoes and candles I can’t seem to get enough books and my titles are as eclectic as the decorating style of my rooms. 

I have novels, histories, biographies, technical texts, cookbooks, travel volumes, memoirs, children’s books, coffee table books, old textbooks from school. Each represents a treasured time for me, moments when I left the confines of my living room and traveled into the world of the past or the future or the imagination. They are like friends to me and even though I may put them away for a time I somehow find my way back to them again and again only to realize how much I love them. 

I once watched a home improvement show with horror as the interior designer chose books for a room according to the color of their spines. They were little more than meaningless decorations. Somehow it felt like using a book as a doorstop or as a coaster for a sweaty glass. As a lover of books I cannot imagine having to go to a thrift store just to find the right shade of a text to match my drapes and pillows. 

My bookshelves are like a biography of me and my husband. An observant individual would know much about us just from glancing at the titles and studying the objects that surround them. I have photos of family and friends that gather with my books. My shelves house precious artifacts that I brought home from travels like rocks and pine cones and blown glass. Among my many volumes there are also antiques from my great grandmother, mother, mother-in-law. I hide away whimsical creatures that make me smile like the little pigs that I add to my collection each New Year’s Day to bring me luck for the remainder of the year. Everything there is linked to a precious memory rather than an artful intention. 

I suppose that it is now somewhat passé to create such collectors of dust. The trend is toward clean and uncluttered lines throughout the home. Young people would consider much of my accumulation to be junk that should be donated or even thrown away. I, on the other hand, think of my bookshelves and their contents as the heart and soul of my home, a haven of joy. 

While I truly enjoy each book that I own there are two that I treasure over all of the rest. One is a collection of short biographies of great men and women whose lives and deeds changed the world for the better. My Grandpa gave me that volume as a gift when I graduated from junior high. Inside the front cover he signed it with an admonition to learn from the great men and women of history. If my home were on fire or in danger of flooding I would rescue that book before concerning myself with anything else as I ran to safety. 

The second book that is a treasure to me is an anthology of poetry from which my father often read to me when I was a child. He taught me the incredible power of words and the loveliness of our language in brief those dramatizations when his voice would utter aloud the cadence of the poems. Somehow that little text is the embodiment of who he was and whenever I see it and read from it I feel his presence and understand exactly who he was as a man even though he died when I was only eight years old. 

I sometimes think that I am the person that I am today because of the influence of my books. Each time I read a new tract or revisit an old one I grow as a person. My books make me better, more interesting, more compassionate, more wise. I’ll keep them near me and hopefully when I am gone someone will understand and want to also keep them near just as I have always done. My bookshelves are a living testament of memories and joy, a history of me and my husband. Why would I want to ever toss away anything associated with them?

One of my brothers loves to solve puzzles, especially if they have mathematical or engineering components. He will quietly sit for long stretches of time poring over possible solutions. I have cousins and friends who devote tables in their homes to putting together jigsaw puzzles. In fact my mother-in-law often did the same thing. Somehow none of these kinds of mental gymnastics have ever appealed to me. I am willing to work with them for only a limited amount of time. What I enjoy are word puzzles of any kind and I am so addicted to them that I have to be careful not to spend an entire day working on them. I become so immersed that I don’t even seem to notice that it’s time for lunch or that the sun is going down. I suppose that there is some kind of curiosity gene in our DNA that prompts us to stretch our brains in pursuit of solutions to problems. 

Solving puzzles of any kind invariably involves the art of observation, the foundation of both the arts and the sciences. If we watch, we learn as my mother always liked to say. For my brother the interplay of numbers and their effect on the universe and how things work is fascinating. For the jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts the features of individual pieces lead to discoveries of how things fit together. For me people are the source of interest, how they talk, what they say, how they behave. I am a people watcher and always have been. I become so engrossed in noting and analyzing the actions and words of those around me that my mother used to chide me for staring. 

I like being in the corner of a room just enjoying the interplay of people. I don’t need to be part of their interactions to have a good time. I actually prefer just being an observer. I tend to be so good at chronicling what I see in the files of my mind that I have actually predicted serious illnesses and deaths before they happened. I have been able to see subtle changes in the behavior of an individual indicating some kind of health problem before the major symptoms even occurred. People have thought of me as some kind of psychic but instead I think it is just my ability to detect even the slightest differences in an individual’s aspect. 

I am usually able to tell when someone is dealing with a serious situation that they are trying to hide from everyone else. I pick up on cues that alert me to anxiety and sorrow. Sometimes the only clue is a distant look in someone’s eyes that betrays their sadness or a sudden inability to concentrate that is out of character. I am often known as an amazingly empathetic person because of my skill. I suppose that it grew from years of watching over my mother and looking for signs that her mental illness was quietly evolving into a new psychotic episode. 

My maternal grandmother never spoke English with me and my cousins. I have learned that there was a time when she worked in the public and even had enough command of the language to converse but by the time I came along she had lost whatever ability she may have had. The extent of her comments to us was to refer to each of us as “pretty boy” or “pretty girl.” I had little idea what my grandmother was thinking so I simply watched her and tried to imagine what was going on inside her mind at any given moment. I learned how to interpret her hand motions and nods of the head. I looked into her eyes to determine her moods. I suppose that she was my first foray into attempts to understand human behaviors. 

I suspect that becoming a teacher was a natural fit for my profound interest in people. I might have taken my same skill into a career as a lawyer or doctor or psychologist or social worker but teaching seemed more personal and purposeful to me. I have always believed that many individual’s difficulties with learning stem from a lack of understanding of who they are and how much family history and environment affects them. Conveying knowledge takes way more than simply presenting information. A teacher must know and understand each pupil on a very deep level and care enough to take the time to help unravel the problems that are preventing them from learning. There is a science to teaching but also an art. Simply knowing content and having a few best practices and management skills is not enough. The best educators reach into the hearts and souls of their students. 

Sometimes I think that it would be easier if I had focused my analytical puzzle solving skills on crosswords or Rubic’s cubes rather than being so engrossed in the unraveling of the human psyche. It can be exhausting to see the hurt and the pain that people are enduring and not be able to do much to help them. I marvel at those who do not even appear to notice the internal struggles of their fellow humans. They are able to simply enjoy life in their little bubbles delightfully unaware of all of the pain in the world.

We each have our talents and are able to solve different kinds of puzzles. I suppose that is what keeps the world moving as it does. Don’t ask me how to build something with my hands. In that regard I am inept, but if you need someone who can see and hear cries for help even when there is no sight or sound indicating trouble I am the person who will know what to do. It is a gift to be able to peer into the souls of the people around me and even when it becomes almost unbearable I know it is what I am supposed to do. 

We all have dreams. Some of them come to us in the dark of night while we are asleep. Others evolve inside our minds. Of late my nocturnal sessions have been populated with spurts of nonsensical meanderings that make no sense at all. I have not had what might be called a coherent dream in many months. In fact, until very recently I was battling long bouts with insomnia brought on no doubt by my tendency to worry about the entire world. It can be exhausting to be perennially concerned about both the people around me and those in the larger realm of faraway places. 

I was having trouble turning off the thought processes of my mind even when I was quite tired. A few adjustments to my daily routine has improved that situation greatly. I curbed my use of caffeine to include only one serving each morning rather than adding an afternoon lift of tea. I drink more water instead and that seems to help. I have quit watching the late news reports before retiring for the evening as well. I can’t do anything to change the situation in the middle of the night so I don’t need to concern myself until morning. I’ve also made sure that I am eating healthier foods and getting lots of exercise during the day. I additionally moved my husband and me to an upstairs bedroom that is cooler and darker at night than the master bedroom. All of those things together have led to some incredibly restful sleep and dreamless nights.

Most of my dreaming is of the daytime version. I am rather idealistic in that regard but then the whole concept of a dream is to think outside of the box and into the seemingly impossible. I suppose that many naysayers would have deemed the American revolution against the crown of the British Empire to be the stuff of fools and yet somehow those longings for freedom from tyranny materialized. When John Kennedy spoke of sending a man to the moon within a decade there were many who laughed at the very idea but with great ingenuity the United States planted a flag on the lunar surface in the time frame JFK had outlined. 

Over and over again humans have dreamed of better ways of living and those seeming fantasies have materialized into realities. Our ancestors of long ago would not recognize the world with all of its innovations. We complete journeys that took them weeks and even months in a matter of hours. We live longer and in better conditions that my grandparents knew. Life has seemingly taken an upward arc every time someone has had a dream that they work hard to make come true. 

We still experience many problems. There are great challenges to overcome. It will be from seemingly ridiculous dreams that we will better our situations. Things that seem impossible now will no doubt become commonplace in the future. Even as I type these words humans across the globe are using their creativity and intelligence to create new and better ways of doing things. It is up to us as a society to encourage such genius just as patrons of times past sponsored giants like Leonardo da Vinci who envisioned flying machines and medical break throughs that seemed like fiction. 

I too have many dreams. I believe that our world will of necessity change drastically to stop the march of climate change that we humans have created. I envision gasoline fueled cars becoming as obsolete as buggies. I foresee homes powered by solar panels and backyard wind turbines. I think we will begin to grow smart crops that not only feed the world but also remove carbon dioxide from it. I think that we will all begin to change the way we do things and actually learn to enjoy the benefits of doing so. Our biggest obstacle will be our reticence to leave behind the old ways and try the new. 

As an educator I am fully aware that we sometimes latch onto a routine way of operating our schools and do not adjust quickly enough to the needs and trends that develop over time. I dream of creating greater flexibility within our educational systems that allow for individualization of programs for each person and locale. The idea that one size fits all is limiting and absurd. Every teacher knows that we are continually losing talented students simply because our routines and methods aimed at some imagined median are bound to miss the mark for those students and locales that are outliers. We have learned how to create hybrid systems during the pandemic. Building on what we have learned will lead to better and better delivery of knowledge for everyone. No longer can we accept a lockstep approach to learning as the best option for each student. 

Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I dream of a world in which we no longer hold prejudices and preconceived notions about any human. This is perhaps the most challenging problem that we face as people and the only way that we can continue to improve will be to admit that we have a serious situation rather than glossing over the issues with platitudes and good intentions. Sometimes we simply need to listen to and believe those who tell us how difficult it is to be a minority in society. We are still spending too much time defending offenses of the past that are actually indefensible and speaking over the cries of those attempting to tell how bad things still are. 

I have so many more dreams. I want to make our universities and training programs more accessible for everyone. I hope to finally create a fair and manageable immigration system. I know that we must work harder to find hope and cures for the mentally ill. I envision a day when nobody has to be homeless. I believe that we have the capacity to build a better and better future for those yet to come but it will not happen as long as we have a constant stream of naysayers shooting down the ideas that are presented just because there is a bit of risk and expense in trying them out. We have to be bold and willing to tackle the universe. Wishing upon a star is something a child does. Flying into the stars is the stuff of the builders of tomorrow. 

I remember the day that Jack Michael Green was born. His dad called me at my school to alert me that my daughter was in labor and to urge me hurry to the hospital. I raced around collecting my things and leaving work for my students to do in my absence. I picked up my husband at his job just down the street. We drove as fast as we could to get to the hospital which was around ninety miles away in Beaumont. When we got there we went to the wrong hospital on our first try. Luckily we arrived at the right place just a few minutes after Jack was born and in that moment he captured my heart. 

Jack was a happy baby and an ever pleasant child. He was calm and always ready to laugh. He was pure delight with eyes so blue that they seemed to outdo the sky itself. Wedged between three brothers, he took his family middle child role in stride never seeming to get upset or cause drama. He liked to dance, swim, play football and learn. He was a curious soul and a profound thinker with a memory like a trap. He enjoyed listening to the silly stories that I created just for him and when I changed even one aspect of the tales he would remind me of the correct way of telling them. He was always easy-going, an observer, a gentle soul. 

As Jack grew he seemed to be a man for all seasons. He loved music and learned to play multiple instruments. He taught his younger brothers to swim and when they began winning medals they always told people that they had learned techniques from the best. He joined his high school theater group and surprised us all with his talent, starring in roles that required him to become characters of many different moods. He excelled and advanced in mathematics and science to the point of becoming an unofficial tutor of his classmates in subjects like Advanced Placement Physics. He knew how to balance life in ways that would confound most adults and one of his proudest moments was becoming an Eagle Scout.

One summer we took Jack to visit San Francisco and Yosemite National Park. He was sweet and threw himself into enjoying every single moment of the trip. He loved walking among the giant trees of Yosemite and talking about philosophy and life. He liked a one man performance about John Muir so much that we had to go see it twice. One evening he and I stayed up half the night watching Forest Gump on a station that had more commercials than movie time. Surprisingly he won a trivia contest at a restaurant the very next day by answering questions about the movie. We visited Monterey Bay and Half Moon Bay where he delighted in the ocean views and running into the icy cold water to jump the waves. We had long conversations about spirituality and our ancestors and other topics that most teenagers don’t seem to care about very much. 

Just before his senior year in high school we drove Jack to visit Texas A&M University where he met with members of the Computer Science faculty and he was so taken by what he saw and heard that he knew that he must attend that school. And so he did as a member of Honors Engineering, making the Deans List, winning a design contest and landing a summer internship with a software company in Austin as a freshman. He would later work with a professor in the Computer Science department on a project dealing with virtual reality and then at a large company in Dallas. All the while he was a man with a plan as he took one course after another while continuing to work with the virtual reality study. He knew exactly where he wanted to go and what he wanted to accomplish and did all that he needed to do to get there.

Today Jack Micheal Greene will graduate with honors from Texas A& M University with a degree in Computer Science. Of course the whole family is so proud of him but somehow we always knew that he would be able to achieve any goal that he chose. In addition to so successfully completing his courses he already has a job with Deloitte in Austin, Texas. He’ll be working downtown and living on his own for the first time in a great apartment that he found not too far from his work. 

Jack has been highly successful at everything he has attempted to accomplish throughout his life so I have little doubt that he will exceed expectations in his career just as he always had. I suspect that he will also have a very good time while doing so because he is so good at squeezing joy out of life. He’s also going to be a force for good because he is politically well educated and he understands issues and how to deal with them better than even the vast majority of lawmakers. 

Jack was named for my father and my husband. He also happens to share the same first and middle names as my brother. In many ways he is an amalgam of the best of all three of these men. Like my father he is a kind of Renaissance man who is equally comfortable with the arts, sciences, engineering and technology. Like my husband he is thoughtful, wise, contemplative, philosophical. Like my brother he is a rational thinker who understands technology and its potential for changing the world. Like all three men he is intellectually brilliant and handsome to boot. With such a combination of characteristics he is sure to have a very good life. 

The long sometimes dark journey through the past year has been tough on the entire world. Jack plowed on with patience and determination just as he always does. Today we honor his efforts and wish him all the best in the future. He has made us all very proud and brought sunshine and hopefulness into our worlds that have been so dominated by viruses and unprecedented events. It’s comforting to know that Jack is ready to take the reins of adult responsibility. He is exactly the kind of person that the world needs right now and we feel lucky that he is excited about being part of finding the solutions that we so desperately desire. 

Congratulations, Jack Michael Greene! You have accomplished so much and yet the best of what you have is still to come. How fun it will be to watch the next phases of your life unfold!