A small group of people from my high school class have begun to explore ideas for our fiftieth reunion. Where does the time go? Surely it was only yesterday when we sat inside the gym on Mt. Carmel Drive while our family and friends watched us graduate from our youth into the world of adults. I’m certain that each of us quietly dreamed about the future. I know that I was convinced that I would do something extraordinary. Of course I had little idea what that might be beyond a superficial understanding of what it really means to be more than just ordinary. Back then my thoughts involved fame, wealth, distinction. Mine was a vague picture of an existence that would stand out from the humdrum. Continue reading “Being Extraordinary”
Author: Sharron Burnett
Our Story
When I was in high school I hated all of my history courses. Oddly enough I still managed to win the top history student award each time I took one of those classes. I still have my medals from World History and American History but I remember little of what I learned, or should I say memorized, back then. It was not until I went to college that I began to see the unfolding of civilizations as interesting subject matter. I had a particularly exceptional professor at the University of Houston who began his discussions of each era by insisting that we first learn about what life was like for the people who lived during particular times. He wanted us to be able to understand the world through the eyes of the people who were there, not those who vicariously wrote about them decades or centuries later. He also used a number of first person sources to demonstrate the conflicting points of view that were in vogue in each moment and place. He believed that only by immersing ourselves in the customs, beliefs, economics, and traditions of the times would we be able to truly appreciate why different events transpired. He insisted that the flow of history has been far more complex than we generally imagine. Continue reading “Our Story”
Grabbing Joy
I love to people watch everywhere that I go. I’m always looking for interesting stories and sometimes I find them just in observing the day to day interactions of human beings. Some of my favorite Facebook posts come from the Humans of New York series of short interviews with ordinary citizens. There is often profound wisdom found in the comments from unknown, everyday men and women. It is for that reason that I am always alert to the goings on around me. Continue reading “Grabbing Joy”
An Incredible Search
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
—Carl Sagan
What were you doing in January of 2006? If you are like me you barely remember. I suppose that I was busy working at Revere Middle School. I had been in my new home in Pearland for almost a year by then. I was still spending Friday nights taking my mother to dinner. My grandchildren were all quite young. Mike and I were simply rocking along in our own little world, often tired from the long hours that we spent at our jobs. I had little idea of the life changing events that were in store for us. I certainly paid no attention to a barely mentioned venture at NASA called New Horizons. Continue reading “An Incredible Search”
We Need Heroes
I have always had a fascination with heroes. As a child I loved learning about saints. Later when I began to realize that none of us are ever as perfect as I had imagined those blessed individuals to be I found new people to inspire me. Among them was John F. Kennedy. Even then I understood that at times he had disappointingly human failings but when his courage was most needed he more than once managed to rise to the occasion. During World War II he saved a number of his fellow crew members on PT 109 in an effort that left him plagued with chronic back pain for the rest of his life. During the terrifyingly dark October days of the Cuban missile crisis he maintained a strong and cool head managing not just to defer a possible nuclear strike on American soil but also to prompt the Soviet Union to dismantle the warheads that had been aimed so dangerously toward cities in the United States. Continue reading “We Need Heroes”
