Category: Commentary

I know that it is not quite officially fall yet, but because it is my favorite season of the year I always rush it just a bit. I start decorating my home with pumpkins and wreaths and lots of fall colors as soon as September arrives. I light the candles that bring scents of spice and apples into my home. I enjoy the slightly cooler days and the shorter hours of daylight. September is the herald of things and people that I most love. 

When I was only five years old I used to accompany my mom and dad on visits my grandparents every Sunday afternoon. Often my grandfather would be raking leaves from the yard when we arrived while my grandmother was in her kitchen cooking a bountifully dinner for all of us. Since she was busy in the kitchen Grandpa shoveled those leaves into a ditch that ran between his yard and the street. This was the drainage system back then, a way of collecting and removing water before underground sewers were built in neighborhoods. I always stayed outside to watch him do his work, but my parents went inside the house. As the pile grew Grandpa would mischievously ask me if I wanted to jump into the accumulation of green and brown and yellow fronds. Diving into them was like landing in the middle of a forest. I would be surrounded by a soft bed of many colors with a fragrance that was delightful. Besides, it was just plain fun and a secret that me and Grandpa never revealed lest the other adults chastise us and tell us not to do that again. 

I repeated the process multiple times and them Grandpa would remove all evidence of my escapade from my hair and my clothing. Then he would light the vegetation and burn it. I’m not sure how environmentally good or bad that was, but I am certain that the aroma of those leaves was incredibly nice. Often there would be other neighbors performing the same task and so there would be little fires filling the air with a smoky perfume. The people called out from next door or across the street to say hello to me and my grandfather or to ask how the family was doing. It felt quite special and made me proud that so many folks seemed to really like my grandfather. 

Eventually Grandma would finish her cooking and call us inside. We’d gather around her big mahogany table and devour her dishes while talking and laughing. She was a remarkable cook. Everything she made tasted so good. I still compare her dishes to those of others and few have ever seemed better than hers. We’d follow up our dinner with homemade pie or strawberry shortcake and then retire to the living room to talk some more.

I don’t know why those visits in the fall were my favorite. The summers were always so hot that we rarely ventured beyond the cooling breezes of the big box fan on the front porch. The winters were cold and kept us inside. In the spring everything was blooming again but there was no work to do like gathering leaves, and so in every season besides fall the special moments of fun with Grandpa were fewer and less exciting than when I got to jump into a bed of leaves. 

So many good things seem to happen to me in the fall or the weeks leading up to it. My father and my husband and my first grandchild were all born in September. October celebrates four of my grandchildren and a nephew and one of my very dearest friends. It is also the month of my wedding anniversary. The Houston Garden Club Bulb and Plant Mart and Halloween are regulars on my October calendar and the weather really begins to bring the kind of chill that I prefer over the usual tropical warmth where I live. In November I celebrate my birthday and treat myself to a slice of pumpkin cheesecake. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. Through it all I often think of being five years old again and playing in the leaves while my grandfather laughed at my antics.

Grandpa was generally a serious man. He certainly liked to laugh and tell a tall tale or two but he rarely behaved in the impish way that he did on the fall days of leaf burning. I suspect that he left his weekly task for Sundays because he knew that I was coming and he wanted to be ready for our little game. From the joy on his face I would surmise that he relished it as much as I always did. I wish I had thought to one day tell him how much those times had meant to me.

There is a meme that explains signs of love that are sometimes more powerful that voicing the words. Someone calling to make sure that one got home safely is surely a clear indication of love. Grandpa creating that sweet little moment for me was his way of letting me know how much he cared. 

I don’t recall my grandfather ever actually saying that he loved me, but he didn’t have to do so because I understood from everything he did for more that his love was deep. It’s funny how we remember the times when people made us feel special, no matter how young we may have been when they happened. Grandpa would become a source of wisdom and comfort for me over time, but more than anything else I’d still love to be next to him while he raked the hundreds of leaves that covered his yard and then see the grin on his face as he dared me to dive right into the middle of the pile. I still hear his laughter and feel his love.

Cartoon programs became popular when I was a child. I grew up in the early days of television and by the time I was seven or eight years old there there a slew of shows aimed at kids, many were cartoons. My favorite had to be Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. The show was rather irreverent and satirical, but I preferred that sort of humor even when I was young. I tended to prefer Goofy over Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny over Donald Duck, the Roadrunner over Mighty Mouse. Still, I sometimes think that I grew up during the heyday of cartoon shows, including The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Those Hanna-Barbera atrocities that were all the rage when my daughters were little were just plain silly and uncreative as far as I was concerned. Not even the most popular of them all, Scooby Doo, had any attraction for me. It would be years before I would find a cartoon that I thought was comparable in quality of writing to the best of my era. That’s when I found Dexter’ Laboratory on the cartoon network.

Dexter was a boy genius even from the time he was a baby. His hero was Albert Einstein and he had created a hidden laboratory behind a bookcase in his home that even his parent’s did not discover. There he created various inventions but was often foiled by his sister Dee Dee and his villainous rival Mandark. I enjoyed the cleverness of the stories and the snappy dialogue. They reminded me of the old Rocky cartoons that I so loved. 

I’d love to see Dexter attempting to save the world from Covid 19. It would be fun to create a story in which he toils away in his lab ultimately finding a 100% effective cure for the virus. Of course the plot would include derailment of his plans along the way by his nosy sister and the jealousy of Mandark. In the end, inspired by Albert Einstein, Dexter would persist until one day he unlocked every secret of the virus including how it began and how to prevent it from ever again harming anyone. Isn’t that how the fantasy of cartoons is supposed to work? Someone always comes to save the day. 

My nephews are volunteers in a drug trial for children under the age of twelve. One of them told his brothers that they are lucky to be the heroes who will help to save the children of the world. That statement is not hyperbole at all. It will take lots of children like him to test the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. When it finally becomes available for widespread use in the coming months, it will have been youngsters like my nephews who helped to save so many children. 

We think of youngsters as being unaware of the world around them when many if not most of them are actually rather precocious like Dexter. They have an understanding of what is happening around them even if no adults are taking the time to talk to them or to realize what is on their minds. How much better it would be if every parent took the time to respect their children by engaging them in age appropriate discussions about what they may be seeing in the world. 

I love my Uncle Bob because when I discovered that one of his legs had been amputated he very honestly told me about his cancer. He explained why the doctor had to remove part of his leg. He did not lie when I asked him if he would be okay forevermore since the offending cancer had been removed. When he died I was only five, so nobody spoke to me about the details of his passing. Instead they whispered behind closed doors. They did not know that I was only okay because my favorite uncle had taken the time to answer my questions with great care. Even at a very young age I needed to have a tiny dose of honesty delivered in a very loving way. He gave me that precious gift.

When my father died three years late well-meaning adults tiptoed around me as though I might not even notice that he was gone. They tried to spare me from discussions about how my father had died. It was left to my best friend Lynda to give me all of the details that she had heard from her mother. It was Lynda who went to my father’s funeral and told me who was there and what had been said. I appreciated her for understanding that I needed to know those things. There was no way that my feelings could be spared. I was already devastated.

We underestimate children just as Dexter’s parents did with him in that cartoon. They were literally clueless that he was creating so many marvelous things. While his story was farfetched, real children are much more aware than we often believe. They need to talk about what they are seeing and hearing and fearing. A wise parent finds ways to settle their minds by allowing them to ask questions and then giving them real answers, not those that hide the truth. 

So much is happening right now. Children can feel the anxiety in their homes even if nothing is discussed in front of them. They hear things from other children that frighten them. Maybe they do not even know how to tell the adults about their concerns. A daily inquiry into what may be worrying them can really help. There is no telling what may be bearing on their little minds. I remember that I used to be stressed that my mother would die and I would be an orphan. I never told anyone about that, but I created a plan in my mind that brought me comfort because I believed that my Aunt Valeria would adopt me. 

Take time to really talk with your children. Be gentle. Allow them to express their feelings. When the fears surface handle them with honesty and reassurance. Children are watching and internalizing the anxieties and even the anger that is so prevalent today. Talk to them. They need for someone to hear what they have to say.

I have a friend whose precious little boy has a thing for watching soccer games and enjoying anything related to dinosaurs. He’s got dinosaur shirts, toys, books and games. He loves visiting museums that house dinosaur bones and replicas. At four years old he has more knowledge of dinosaurs than most adults. 

I suppose that dinosaurs have fascinated humans for centuries. It’s almost impossible to imagine how massive they were and what it was like when they roamed the earth. One of the greatest mysteries of all time is why they seemed to so suddenly disappear. I’ve heard all sorts of theories for what contributed to their demise. Some hypothesize that they might have developed some kind of virus or that a gigantic asteroid hit the earth causing a kind of cataclysm. Others suggest that there was a protracted drought or conversely a dramatic freeze. Whatever it was, they left forever but evidence that they were here has been found across the globe. I suppose that their ultimate extinction makes them even more fascinating

I often wonder if it would have been possible for dinosaurs and people to coexist. Of course the movie Jurassic Park makes that seem unlikely. Having those massive creatures around would most certainly have had a profound effect on our own evolution and development of civilization. How would we have kept them at bay given their often enormous sizes and, in some cases, violent natures? Even the fittest humans would have had to be quite innovative to survive around those creatures.

We tend to take our tenure on this earth for granted as though it is a given, and yet the story of the dinosaur demonstrates that even such grand specimens are not immune to extinction. Our advantage is our ability to think, but unfortunately we do not always use that special gift of brain power as well as we should. Our intelligence has made us seemingly the masters of the planet. We have a kind of dominion over all the other creatures. We have even learned how to tackle tiny microbes that create disease, but we have weaknesses that could lead us to the same kind fate as the dinosaurs. 

The state of the world as this moment is revealing many of the flaws of our human responses. We are often tribal when we should be united instead. We fall prey to ignorance, pettiness, jealousies that lead us to disagreements and violence. We often abuse our planet and each other without thinking much about the ultimate consequences of our actions. We are much more intricate, interesting and incredible than the dinosaurs with their tiny brains and inability to think about changing in order to survive. Still, we sometimes act as though we are not any more intelligent than the giant reptiles who succumbed to whatever disaster made them extinct. We have to realize that many of our destructive tendencies have the potential of destroying us. Luckily there are always seem to be enough humans thinking ahead to keep themselves and most of the rest of us alive and well on this planet, but we have to be willing to listen to what they have to say.

I’m not much of a scientist myself, but I have great regard for those who are. While we humans need our arts, our literature and our music, it is within the realm of science, medicine and engineering that we will find our way out of the challenges that are seemingly overtaking us. We will get past the current pandemic because of science. We will solve the problems of climate change with the knowledge and innovations of researchers and engineers. Those of us who are not on the forefront of inventiveness must help each cause with a willingness to change our ways as needed. If we simply lumber along obliviously eating and sleeping and not allowing our intellect to guide us, we are ultimately doomed as a species. If we keep wasting our energies fighting rather than working our way out of our troubles then the future looks dark and difficult.

We have a tendency to blame individuals for our woes when in truth we are the culprits who are undermining the efforts of those who have the knowledge to guide us away from harm. We’d rather quibble and boast than do the heavy lifting that our current situation requires. It’s easy to call a world famous virologist “Dr Doom” because he tells us truths about Covid-19 that we do not want to hear, but we are unwilling to do a simple thing like wearing a mask to protect ourselves and others. We will smoke and drink and desecrate our environment and then worry that the vaccines that have been developed to help us are putting poisons into our bodies. We waste our earth’s resources without thought of the future. We do not alway use the brains that have brought humankind this far, but when we look back through history it should be clear that our hubris has all too often led us to the brink of destruction.

Dinosaurs are our teachers. We my not ever know exactly what happened to them, but we do realize that it had to be bad. We must learn from them that life on this earth can be uncertain. The world changes and we must be swift and flexible enough to adapt. Wishing for the past, building fences around ourselves and ignoring the truth of data is not the answer. We have to do better than that.

I am a collector of shoes. While I don’t quite rival Imelda Marcos, I do have more than my fair share of pumps and sneakers and boots and sandals. Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy shoes as much as I do because I had so few as a child. Back then I usually owned a pair of sensible school shoes and some cute flats for wearing to church and special occasions. In the summer I simply ran around in my bare feet. I wore my footwear until I either out grew them or they wore out. As an adult, my feet no longer change their size and so began my accumulation of a multitude of colors and styles. 

I’m a sucker for shoe stores and big sales on the latest trends in footwear. I find excuses for owning just one more pair of winter boots, even though it rarely gets very cold around here. In fact, as soon as the temperature brings a tiny chill, all of the ladies bring out the boots that tend to last forever because it is so rare to have the proper conditions for wearing them. 

Sadly I can no longer wear really high heels or shoes with pointy toes. My feet will be crying for mercy within an hour or so and I’ll be walking in my bare feet just to be able to still walk. Really flat soles are not good for me either. Still, I manage to find some cute shoes that have both style and comfort after I try on about a twenty pairs. 

Ironically you’d think that I am a shoe fashionista, but my all time favorite shoes are shockingly practical. I purchased them in a hardware store in Boerne, Texas when I was on vacation. They were the kind I had often dreamed of owning. You’ve no doubt seen the style before on farmers and others who labor in the mud and muck. I’m talking about a pair of black rubber boots that fit just past the top of my calves. They are made from thick ebony colored rubber like you might expect to find on tires. There is nothing glamorous about them, but I absolutely adore them!

I have a variety of hobbies including writing, reading, taking continuing education classes, and gardening. When I put on those boots I know that I am going to have a great day in my yard. I can haul and spread dirt, repot favorite plants, trudge through mud, and even reroute water that is flooding a section of my property. I feel like my grandmother Minnie who would deck herself out in denim overalls, a flannel shirt, a straw hat, and black rubber boots to tackle the planting and harvesting of the crops on her farm. Best of all I can simply run my boots under a stream of water from the hose to get them as clean as if they were new.

I know lots of women get really cute rubber boots with patterns of little ducks or flowers or some such thing, but I want the black ones that show how serious I am about the work that I do when I garden. It’s not a task for the weak of heart. I get dirt under my fingernails and sweat on my neck. Best of all I feel born again and as though the little cells of serotonin are having a happy party in my brain. 

I don’t know if it’s genetic or if I simply love working outside with my plants because it reminds me so much of my fabulous grandmother. My thumb is not nearly as green as hers was, but I do a better than middling job of keeping the landscape looking rather lovely. I think that I would really miss the workout that I get planting and weeding if I were ever to become too feeble to continue my labor.

My grandmother kept up her yard even after she was diagnosed with cancer. She moved to a home close to the Medical Center in Houston and used the months when she was still okay to turn it into a paradise even though she was eighty eight years old. It must have been horrific for her when she finally lacked the strength to enjoy her favorite pastime. I suppose that is when she realized that her time on this earth was coming to an end.

I’ve had my black rubber boots for decades now. You would never know how old they are or how much of a workout I have given them. They sit in my garage faithfully waiting until I need them, and even though they are inanimate I hope they know how much I like them. 

I’ve never again seen a pair of heavy duty black rubber work boots in a size small enough to fit my feet. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to them. I suppose I’d have to go to the Internet to find another pair. For now, they are just fine and will always be my favorite pair of shoes.

I remember when company or school mission statements became all the rage. I even had to take part in the creation of one or two of them. I never really liked either the process or the products. The missions always sounded a little bit the same, and they were more often than not filled with platitudes. After they were completed they were usually features on the first page of the employee and student handbooks, and then promptly forgotten by mostly everyone. 

I’m not against having a clear mission, but most of the time mission statements are purposely vague which makes them very much like horoscopes or fortune cookies. One might easily be exchanged for another one without anyone really noticing. In fact, I often imagine the final products as initially being prewritten documents with blanks filled in to make it sound like the organization for which it stands. 

One of the best mission statements ever written was the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. It rather perfectly outlines the intent of the laws that follow. Essentially it outlines seven general but noble goals including to form a more perfect Union, to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Since the origination of the Constitution, the three branches of our government have been clearly tasked with maintaining the objectives outlined in the Preamble by following the laws outlined in the Constitution. It hasn’t always been an easy task.

Of course, as with any mission statement even the Preamble is purposely vague about how to achieve such lofty aims. The Founding Fathers wisely understood that a mission statement should be flexible enough to endure the test of time. So it is that our Constitution has been amended to allow for new philosophies and changing times. The Preamble, however, always remains the same in underscoring that the seven ideas in its body should always be the goal. These are commitments to a particular kind of government. 

I’ve often asked myself what my mission should be in the remainder of my life. Sometimes I laugh and think that just waking up each morning is an accomplishment given how many people that I once knew have died. But then I realize that greeting the new day is not something that I have actually done. It’s little more than an instinctive reaction. I certainly want to continue learning and with that in mind I read voraciously. If I did as much for my body as I do for my mind I would be quite buff, but I’m not totally bad given my age and the fact that I have not been able to return to the gym for over a year now. I’ll keep walking and hopefully install a  recumbent bike in the house to keep my muscles working. I’ll also partake of those fifteen minute HIIT videos on Netflix. I try to do something nice for someone everyday, but sometimes I get preoccupied with tasks that really do not have to take place, so I need to remind myself that kindness should be a priority. I enjoy writing, but I normally get inspired by the places I go and the things that I do. Covid has somewhat restricted my ideas so that I am not as satisfied with my efforts as I normally am, but then who feels normal these days anyway? I am determined to travel again, but I’m feeling a bit discouraged with the uptick in Covid cases, and for now my trailer is out of commission. 

I look forward to fall. I’m more inspired to be industrious and accomplish things when it is cool. The heat seems to slow my brain and my body. I don’t even get joy out of being in my yard when it’s ninety six degrees in the shade. Soon, however, I’ll be teaching my kids again, and there is little that brings me so much joy. I suppose that when all is said and done being a mom and grandmother and wife and teacher is my true mission in life so why would I need to create some kind of trite statement to define how I hope to represent my life?

In truth I’m far too much of a free spirit to tie myself down to a stilted document that attempts to define my future goals. I don’t even like planning my days too far in advance. I get antsy if I have too many appointments on the calendar. I want to be able to take a spontaneous drive or bake a cake or go out for lunch whenever the spirit moves me. I’m retired. I don’t want anything binding me to a particular routine. I’ve worked hard to get here and I just want to be able to wander however the spirit moves me. So I stand by my original thought that mission statements feel contrived and often quite meaningless. 

I hate to admit to mostly flying by the seat of my pants through life. I feel more creative and alive that way. I miss too much when everything is already planned. These days I can finally get by with being a kind of sprite, and it really feels good.