Author: Sharron Burnett

Years ago a teacher friend told me the story of going to help a woman whose home had been destroyed by hurricane Katrina. With tears in her eyes she spoke of the sorrow of realizing that nothing was left to retrieve in the once beautiful home. She related that as the two of them walked despondently and silently to the car her companion suddenly darted toward an ancient oak tree that had once provided shade to the home that was a shambles. Without explanation the woman began climbing the tree as though she was a ten year old child rather than a woman in her fifties. With a gleefulness that seemed impossible given the circumstances she moved higher and higher through the branches. 

At this point my friend believed that the woman had somehow lost her mind over witnessing the tremendous damage of her family home. She had no idea how to react to the outrageous behavior but was worried about how she was going to talk the woman down from her dangerous perch. Then she heard a joyous squeal as the woman waved a china plate and exclaimed, “The family china is not all gone. This plate found a safe place in the tree,”

Disasters destroy precious memories. Floods turn diplomas to pulp and render photos unrecognizable. Winds bring down hundred year old trees while fires turn everything to ashes. Those affected by such things are always grateful when nobody is injured or killed, but there is something so personally difficult about losing a lifetime of objects that represent our heritage, our milestones, our travels and our happiest times. We can rationalize that they are worth far less than the people who owned them but knowing that they are gone forever only compounds the sorrow we are feeling.

Time and again the aftermath of destruction whether it be from wars or nature remind us of the life events that we experienced in our homes and neighborhoods. When favorite things or places are gone forever we feel as though a part of who we uniquely are has been stripped away. Of course we can rebuild, buy new things, but somehow the end result is never quite the same. I suppose that the resurrection of Notre Dame Cathedral exactly as it had once been is one of the few times that such a project turned out to make a structure better than it had been before. Most of the time it is impossible to recreate an exact replica of what is gone. 

When I was growing up my family belonged to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Houston, Texas. It was a dynamic parish that began in a makeshift church but over time built a beautiful gathering place. I was married in the church that my family helped build and the photos of my wedding speak to the magnificence of the altar and the vaulted ceiling. 

During hurricane Harvey everything changed. The roof collapsed and the parishioners did not have the funds to repair the church much less return it to its former glory. They scraped together enough just enough to fix the roof and to clean the mess that five days of rain falling into the vestibule had done. The glorious architecture of the original nave was too expensive to recreate so a simpler plan evolved. While the new interior is practical and nice enough it will never be quite as wonderful as the original church. All too often this is what happens when people have to rebuild their lives and their homes from scratch. The reconstruction is not quite as beautiful as the original.

I always feel both a sense of sadness and responsibility whenever a disaster destroys homes or churches or buildings. I experience a kind of empathetic connection to those who have borne the brunt of misfortunate. I have dodged the wrath of storms so many times while people around me have endured massive losses. I feel that is important to volunteer to help with the clean up projects for friends, relatives and even strangers. I donate to organizations that will provide them with a new start. When such sad times occur I watch the people who have been affected wander among us as though they are in a state of disbelief. I have felt their pain and understood how it takes them years to psychologically recover. Sometimes they never really get better but only pretend that all is well with them. 

My aunt’s home burned to the ground several years ago. In the aftermath she seemed to suddenly turn old and riddled with health problems. The spark that had made her energetic and fun to be around was dimmed. It was not long after the incident that she died even as we had always imagined her living to a very ripe old age. 

We are witnessing nations destroyed by bombs and homes obliterated by fire. Mud slides on mountains are taking out homes that are in the way. Hurricane winds bring trees down on buildings and tornadoes blow structures apart. Nature is continually challenging us and setting us back. If we are lucky enough to be unaffected by such things we should be willing to help in whatever way we can. We never know when it might be our turn to learn how it feels to lose the precious reminders of our lives. I’d like to think that someone will be there to cry with us or watch us celebrating in a tree as we begin the process of beginning again. Hearts will feel less broken when we know that others care.

When I was a teen my favorite books were mysteries and the stories of Agatha Christie were among the best in my estimation. It’s been a long while since I have read any of her stories but a visit to a Barnes and Noble bookstore just before Christmas changed all of that for me. That’s when I wandered over to a display of lovely classics with delightful covers. As I almost squealed with delight at the sight of some of my all time favorite authors and titles my husband snapped away with his camera. 

I thought that perhaps he just got a kick out of my enthusiasm and wanted to keep a visual record of my childlike excitement. Lo and behold on Christmas Day I opened book after lovely book that for which he had recorded my joy. Among them was a volume of Hercule Poirot mysteries. I already knew the stories so well so very well. They entertained me once again not with an intent to solve a case before reaching the ending, but because of the delightful prose of Agatha Christie. 

I had forgotten how truly lovely Ms. Christie’s descriptions are. The pages literally came alive with characters that seemed to be in the same room with me because her words were so vivid. I had become of fan of Agatha Christie mysteries on television and in films but not even the best acting and cinematography can compare to her ability to create a situation so lifelike that it feels as though I am peering over her shoulder. 

I realized why I had been such a fan of her writing as I read story after story. It took me back to a time in the mid nineteen sixties when I was a skinny young girl filled with dreams. Reading was my favorite pastime then and it still is today. Luckily I found incredible writers to introduce me to worlds and ideas that I would not have otherwise known. 

It was only later that I learned about Agatha Christie’s most unlikely and extraordinary life. She herself was the subject of mystery when she disappeared for a time without notice and had the world looking for her. She was one of the most popular authors of her time, vying Arthur Conan Doyle for fans. A play based on one of her stories, The Mousetrap, is the longest running theater production on London’s West end. 

I found my reintroduction to Agatha Christie to not only be delightful but also to be a kind of lure back to London and the English countryside. If I were better at choosing words like Ms. Christie I might be able to explain my love affair with that country. Perhaps the secret is locked somewhere in my DNA because fifty percent of who I am was made up of people whose ancestors came form that locale. In fact, in spite of my Texas drawl I have more than once had people insist that I look very much like people that they have known from England. 

I fell in love with London when I visited in 2017 and I have spent the last eight years fantasizing a return visit that would allow me to see all of the things that I missed on my first journey there like hearing Big Ben chime and attending a play or musical. I’d also like to take a train to the north and perhaps spend some time in Scotland. Then I would chunnel over to France and spend some time in Paris. From there maybe I would make my way to Rome. 

I’m not getting any younger and if I don’t go on such excursions now I might miss my chance. Agatha Christie was an inveterate traveller to exotic places where her characters had such grand adventures. I long to be like them especially after following the journeys of a friend who has spent the last few years visiting every place on earth that she has ever wanted to see. Her travelogues are fascinating and in them she urges all of us to get up and get out into a world which is waiting for us. 

I don’t know if it will be possible for me to fulfill my wish but I know it won’t happen if I only dream about it or read about it. Those books I received have ignited a torch inside my soul that keeps telling me it’s time to go. isn’t it funny how books have the ability to pull us out of our ruts and into other worlds?

I’ve got an itch to enjoy other cultures, maybe even Poirot’s Belgium. I’d like to find out if I might be able to reserve a trip on the Orient Express. It all sounds so deliciously fun. Who knows, if I go I might even stumble onto a mystery. 

When I attended the University of Houston there were certain core classes that everyone had to take regardless of what they had chosen as a major. One of the required studies was Political Science, a tough course that delved deeply into the inner workings of our federal, state and local governments. To say it was enlightening would be an understatement. 

The deep dive into the origins and evolution of our government was not just exciting, but so informative that I found myself thinking it should be a requirement for every single American citizen. I realized that my studies helped me to understand what kind of legislators and leaders our nation needs. I began to do extensive research into candidates for office with an eye to looking beyond their platitudes and political propaganda and instead attempted to choose those who seemed the most capable of guiding our democratic republic with an eye for representing all of us, not single issues. 

A word that still sticks in my mind from the six hours of coursework in Political Science is “incrementalism.” It was a new concept to me and at the age of eighteen I had to be convinced that it was wise to slowly make changes to our laws and ways of operating rather that taking an axe to whatever seemed to need an overhaul. I soon learned that the concept of incrementalism was important in assuring that politicians would not have the power to be constantly redesigning our government according to their personal whims. It was actually a bulwark against authoritarians and dictators. The idea was a brilliant check and balance feature created by our founders who had experienced the whims of kings that kept life unbalanced and chaotic. They purposely wanted the process of change to be a bit sluggish so that no one person would ever be able to break our Constitution apart. 

Then along came Donald Trump with his assurance from the Supreme Court that seemed to find that he could not be held accountable for wrongdoings done in the name of leading our nation as president. The immunity ruling gave him the green light that he needed to upend the many agencies that he believed were infected by “woke” thinking and disloyal employees wasting our nation’s treasures. With the help of Elon Musk and the magical Department of Government Efficiency a new mantra has pushed aside the belief in the good of incrementalism. Instead the plan is to “move fast and break things,” the motto of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of META. The idea is to disrupt the normal administration of the government by changing it as quickly as possible without any real merit for the decisions being made. 

The methodology catches the public off guard so that the changes are complete before anyone has sufficient time to analyze what has happened. It does not take into account unintended consequences or safeguards against potential harms. Acting fast is revolutionary. The aspects that don’t quite work well can always be fixed later according to the theory. The important thing is to take a torch to the old ways to make room for the new.

Sadly there is a great deal of difference between introducing new technologies and taking down human systems. For example redesigning schools should be done with care because simply throwing everything out all at once is likely to hurt people in multiple ways. The attempts to improve should be well thought out and must include input from all of the stakeholders. 

I once landed a position in a school that was low performing on the state tests. Rather than taking an axe to what we were already doing a wise group of leaders took a much more humane and elegant approach to improving our school. They sat us down with statistics showing us exactly where each of our students were falling behind. With that data analysis we were able to change how we taught specific concepts. The district provided us with intensive training and gave us time away from the classroom to work with experts to redesign the sequencing of how and when we taught the skills and knowledge for each of our subject areas. Then they gave us the time to find what worked and what still had glitches. By the end of two years our test scores were on the rise and by the end of three years we had become exemplars of how to educate underserved students. People came from all over the state to confer with us and we in turn visited schools who had problems similar to the ones that had once seemed to define us. 

The point I am making is that randomly firing people or shutting down entire agencies the way DOGE is doing is haphazard and does not address the actual problems that may exist. It is not just an economic problem. Simply saving money will not result in better performance. What will help is to send experts to retrain the employees using actual data that points to problem areas. Young lions with computing power do not even know what they are breaking or why they should do so. It will not result in a more efficient government. 

I think that every American can agree that there is some waste in government and that some agencies are not as efficient as they should be. We can find the problems but they can’t be solved in a matter of days. Right now the morale among government workers is so low that it is doubtful that good results with come. Instead it is wiser to take a deep breath, admit that Rome was not built in a day, and take a strategic and analytical approach to improvement. Any changes that have to come so quickly that nobody has time to realize what is happening are certain to be a mess. Slow down. Change incrementally. Find the best of each agency and keep that while letting go of the worst habits that have impeded success. That has always been the best way of doing things and it actually works. 

DOGE is the epitome of inefficiency. The people destroying agencies have no idea what they are doing. Get rid of this approach and try something like the example of improving the school where I worked. It may take more time but it’s results will be exactly what is needed.

We just celebrated a day of love or at least that is what Valentine’s Day is supposed to be in modern times. The idea of setting aside February 14, originally came about to honor a martyr for the Catholic faith. The exact story of who this person was is rather sketchy. Nonetheless over time February 14, became associated with flowers and cards and declarations of love. 

This year I used that day to meditate a bit on the state of our union here in the USA. Anyone who has read my posts knows that I am befuddled and angry about the chaos that Donald Trump is imposing on our nation. I believe in my heart that he is the antithesis of love and compassion. Everything he does seems to be predicated on vengeance, cruelty, and greed. That being said I am not one who thinks that everyone who voted for Trump thought they were voting for what they are now getting from him. 

Oh sure, there were incredibly hateful and racist people among the Trump voters. They have not been silent about their vileness. They have lived in the underbelly of our country from its beginning. Most of the time they have had to sulk in obscurity but now and again they rise up to demonstrate their hate. They’ve been cloaked in white robes  wearing masks to torture Black Americans. They are white suprematists who now seem to believe that Trump has given them a green light to perform their evil in the light of day,

Because I do not think it would be just or even true to indict everyone who voted for Trump for being as vile as the worst of his supporters I have to wonder if they are as bothered about most of the things he is doing as I am. I also wonder how they were able to ignore the many signs that he was going to do exactly what he is now doing. He told us what he had in mind day after day and yet some of his long time supporters seem to be surprised by his actions. I know of many who still think that he was only joking to get attention but the evidence indicates that he was deadly serious.

Do those who put Trump into office feel comfortable that he is driving our long time allies away while currying favor with Russia? Surely the same people who worried that Democrats are communists must be outraged that Trump is siding with the biggest commie of them all, Vladimir Putin. Does it bother them that Trump has invited Putin to Washington DC when our allies in Europe are united against Putin?

Do my Republican friends who flew Ukrainian flags feel a bit taken aback when Pete Hegseth announces that Ukraine should not expect to ever join NATO nor will they reclaim areas that were once part of their country? Are they appalled that the Trump administration wants Ukraine to surrender and just slink away? Surely this is not what they wanted. I saw their emotional pleas for Ukraine. Are they now willing to pretend that they no longer care?

Did anyone want Elon Musk to take an axe to government agencies with a crew of young boys who now have access to all of our personal information? Does it seem wise to randomly decrease the number of employees without conducting a survey to determine who the most knowledgeable people are rather than relying on loyalty oaths to a single individual as an indicator of who should stay? Surely they would prefer that those who keep our government running are more invested in the Constitution and our laws than in serving one man. 

I know that many who voted for Trump believed that only the most criminal and illegal immigrants would be targeted with exile from our country so why are they not worried that even the DACA kids might be in line for deportation to countries that they have never known? Can they really want birthright citizenship to go away like Trump suggests? Do they really believe that he has the power to simply ignore an amendment to the Constitution?

I simply do not understand why there is not a hue and cry from all Americans. A man who literally only received thirty two percent of all potential votes is claiming a mandate for tearing our government apart. He has stolen the constitutional job of the Congress and not even the members of his party are complaining. Are those who voted for him as concerned as I am? Do they not see that we are slowly devolving into authoritarian rule rather than the democracy that our founders designed? 

Inflation is already rising. Unemployment is following along. Students about to graduate from college are receiving letters rescinding job offers. Men and women with negligible experience or moral character are being put in charge of our nation’s security and health while a nineteen year old boy known as”Big Balls” was just hired to be an advisor in the State Department. Surely we can all see the danger of what is happening and that the man who won the presidency has lost his mind. Do we really want an unelected immigrant to serve as co-president? Why are we not demanding that the insanity cease and desist immediately. What happened to our patriotism and our courage? Who is going to save us from this travesty if we do not join together before it is too late?

I am so very confused. I cannot in any way shape or form believe that the majority American people wanted any of this. I wonder how many have to be hurt before we demand that it stops. I have never before been so afraid for my country. God help us all!  

My grandfather, William Mack Little, was born on a November day in either 1878 or 1879. There is no clear document to confirm the actual moment of his birth just as there seems to be no sign of his parents in a census or other official document. I simply know that he existed and what I know about him came from his own lips.

According to his story his mother died three days after he was born from complications. I’ve often thought about that because I was in hard labor for over eighteen hours with my first child. Later my doctor would almost casually note that I might have had a difficult time giving birth in an earlier era. In fact he conjectured that I might even have died without expert medical care. It was a shocking statement to which I only reacted years later when I thought about the implications and how I may have inherited certain problems from my great grandmother, Marion.

I have been haunted by the thought of this woman. I find myself wondering how old she was when her son was born. I try to imagine her having a difficult time during the birth and ultimately succumbing to death before having a chance to love her baby boy and watch him grow old. I have been unable to find any documentation regarding her existence and yet my grandfather is the evidence that she was indeed once alive and hopefully happy at the prospect of becoming a mother. 

My grandfather remembered his mother by naming his daughter after her. I wonder if he longed for his mama when he was a boy growing up somewhere in the backwoods of Virginia. Was the grandmother who raised him the mother of his father or was she the parent of his mother? These are questions that I did not think to ask when I had the chance. My queries came too late and somehow public records provide no clues as to this mystery. 

Ironically my grandfather lived to the age of one hundred eight. His mind was clear and brilliant until the final weeks of his life. He was a strong man who was still building things and remodeling the home where he lived when he was in his nineties. He was so sturdy that my brothers and I seemingly took for granted that he would always be with us. 

Grandpa’s stories of his boyhood in the nineteenth century were vivid and illustrated the hardships that the common people endured during that time. He spoke of the graft of presidents, the poverty of vast numbers of people, the depression that overtook the land. He vividly described the ravages of smallpox and the time when he was quarantined with his father who seemed to be dying from that dread disease. 

As a young adult Grandpa traveled the United States doing carpentry work. He marveled at the inventions that he witnessed in their infancy. He remembered the first time he saw a town lit up with electricity. He breathlessly described learning about the flight of the Wright Brothers. He spoke of the changes in the lifestyle of Americans that brought wondrous inventions into homes. He was alive at the time of invention of the first cars, the first movies, the advent of television, the astronauts walking on the moon. He understood without question that progress had made the world better and for him the idea of going back in time was ridiculous. He lived to see the nineteen eighties and to know that me and my brothers were doing well. 

Grandpa was a happy and optimistic man whose mantra was that “these are good old days.” The very idea that the world was better at an earlier time was ridiculous to him. He understood all too well how dark and difficult life had been for everyone in the past. He had lived through those times and seen the suffering including four wars. I suppose he realized that in the modern times his mother might have lived long after his birth and been able to love him as much as he loved the thought of her. 

Grandpa lost all of his money when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in the early nineteen sixties. There was no Medicare back then so he had to use his own money for her care. She was so ill that her medical treatments drained all of the resources that he had saved over time, including his house. He ended up in a rented room with a landlord who became his best friend. When he finally grew ill at the end of his life Medicare paid for his needs. He more than most understood how wonderful the idea of helping the elderly was.

I suppose that if Grandpa were alive today he would see a kind of return to the Gilded Age of his boyhood in which the so called robber barons held most of the wealth and power. I suspect that he would warn us of the problems that might occur when the guardrails that keep us healthy and secure are removed. He would worry about the incredible influence of the wealthiest among us who seem to be in league with our politicians. He was not just a student of history. He had lived it and in the process he understood that progress was not a bad thing but that turning back almost always is.