While pushing a grocery buggy with a squeaky, lop-sided wheel through the store, a happy dance suddenly rises from the marrow of my bones. Blue Bell’s on sale!
Feeling tears of joy well up in my eyes, I stand hopelessly in front of the double glass doors completely mesmerized by the gold and brown rim half gallons of ice cream. Salivating like Pavlov’s dog, I narrow in on Southern Blackberry Cobbler, but just before I reach for it, I see Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough out of my peripheral vision, and there’s Moo-Llennium Crunch above that!
Those made me second guess myself, and fight, and I mean fight, to walk away from it all like a good boy should. But like a fly caught in a spider’s web, both feet stick to the floor as people pass me on both sides of the aisle. Continue reading Blue Bell Blues→
It’s odd, but when the mood for pancakes strikes, Whataburger, the hamburger place of Texas, is where I go. On Christmas Eve morning, the mood struck.
When I walked through the Whataburger doors, the woman behind the counter immediately greeted me. She was probably 45 years old, fairly small, and a little rough around the edges. She was the only one there wearing a Santa hat which covered all but the ends of her short corn rows on the side of her head. She spoke with a semi-deep smoker’s voice and was missing four, maybe five, of her top front teeth. She whole heartedly welcomed me, took my order and started pouring coffee. Continue reading We All Is→
Sugar – it’s worse than cocaine! The onward swooning of sugar’s allure is woefully tempting! And the Christmas holidays are filled with every sort of the granulated, powdered, refined, and liquified versions of the cane plant.
Sure, I could lame blame it on something like my lack of self-control, but what fun is there in that? Instead, I cast fault on everyone else’s need for an ever-growing fix of sugar.
Truth be told, the ideal world would have none of it. Instead, we’d just reach for a blueberry or celery stick, or maybe just suck on a prune for an hour or so for relief. (No prune relief pun intended). Continue reading Christmas Calories→
After my daughter’s out of town volleyball games, Janet and I look for out-of-the-way places to eat in rural East Texas. Sometimes though…
…sometimes, we should turn around. Like, what if the door doesn’t have a closing time? What kind of place closes just, whenever? It reminds me of the Hotel California — you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Hint, hint, hint. There’s no closing time on the door. Yikes!
Inside we stood wondering what to do, but it was a country cafe so we seated ourselves. We saw another couple we know from volleyball who had the same bright idea. We spoke and discovered they had been there a while but hadn’t ordered yet. (There’s another clue.) Continue reading Eating Out Where They’re Out to Lunch→
A front end alignment appointment at 8 AM on Saturday seemed straight forward, but trucks, cars and mobile equipment were everywhere. Inside, about fifteen men were waiting. Interestingly, all were wearing boots, jeans and a plaid or denim shirt, except for the tire shop owner who was dressed up because he had on a Magellan fishing shirt. That’s not an endorsement or condemnation of anyone, just a local clothing colloquialism.
When a middle-aged man walked in wearing designer shorts, spotless, name brand tennis shoes and a lime green dress shirt with a fuzzy vest over it, he stood out like a leprechaun at a slam dunk basketball competition. Even more so, his overly bronze face and legs looked more like a tanning bed accident rather than nature’s sunshine reward and he seemed, I don’t know, awkward. Each black and silver hair was perfectly in place and not one of them moved, even in the wind.
It’s a unique part of being human — tragedy, hardship, loss and pain tend to bring people together. It seems like it would be prosperity, success, everything going good that brings people together. Not so, at least, not usually.
Case in point is Hurricane Harvey. For those not directly affected, this may be a meaningless example, or at least, not as poignant. But for those who have experienced it, even if only a part, it is a horrible time for so many people. At the same time, it’s somehow refreshing, like a root of hope has blossomed. Continue reading Sail On Texas Navy!→
The remnants of Hurricane Harvey are still dumping Mother Nature’s tears on my home town of Angleton. Houston, an hour north, is getting deluged with rain. Creeks, rivers and bayous are overflowing, and every drop of rain on top of that is making life hard on family, friends and strangers. Having grown up in the area, this is beyond hard. These are some of the most stressful, difficult, trying days one can imagine!
Stories about family, faith, friends and funnies. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee and laugh, cry, ponder and inspire about ordinary events of this wonderful, ever changing, bubbling pot that we call "every day life".
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