Couldn't stop thinking about the Coastal area of my girlhood

I was less than 50 miles from the Gulf more that a month after the BP disaster, the crawfish were bitin,' and amid the bon temps, a not-so-thin veil of sadness

I was steep in my homeland in Bayou country and could inhale rich air from the nearby marshes. The Crawfish Boil, a ritual you can genuinely embrace only if you have Cajun and Creole in your blood, upbringing or heart, was on. More than 20 of us partied the afternoon through evening, eating cayenne spiced mudbugs, sided with steaming boiled potatoes and corn-on-the-cob and fresh red and yellow bell peppers, locally made Richard's Sausage and Leonard's Boudin, and of course, drinking favorite sodas, waters and brewskis. All under a typical late May southwest Louisiana sky teasing with showers. (OK, girl, slow down. Deep breathing!).

For all the karma, I couldn't stop thinking about the nearby coastline and the dreary future none of us wanted to talk about in this venue.

As we swayed, bopped and clapped and littler ones danced to Zydeco, rap, blues and pop music from my nephew's iPod mix blaring from his Dad's parked dark blue GMC Sierra, waiting for refills from the next sizzling hot pot of the main dish, the thought lingered in our minds. I knew if I was feeling it, everybody was. There were little signs anyway, like the missing boiled jumbo Gulf shrimp helping at our feast that in years past depending on the economy accompanied our featured critters.

Gulf shrimp "depending on the economy!?'' Oh what a luxury it was to have so fickle a worry as the high cost of Louisiana crustaceans. A worry that we knew would eventually fix itself based on our adjusted home budgets, a change in job market reports or Wall Street stock listings. Or supply and demand. Something cyclical that wouldn't indefinitely wipe out livelihoods, cultures and small towns dependent on clear Gulf waters and the well-oiled state wildlife and fishing industry.

At our little celebration, none of us wanted to bring up the April devastation that started with loss of human lives. This was a Memorial Day weekend festival, a 23-year tradition, that we did not want dampened by a typical seasonal afternoon downpour or an atypical debate of the BP mess that was marring what had started out as a mighty fine year for a state that had been to you-know-where and back since Aug. 29, 2005. Thoughts hovered, but we didn't speak of it. Too much pain. We needed this family gathering.

My brother the educator/award winning fisherman had been repairing his boat all year for a little summer R&R on the water in nearby Cameron/Hackberry, the coastal inlets still healing almost five years after Rita. ( http://blogs.edf.org/restorationandresilience/2010/02/19/fighting-back-a-wave-of-unemployment-coastal-louisiana-needs-federally-funded-restoration-jobs-now/) Since the storms of '05, his passion for fishing had quietly subsided. I noticed.

It's been years since another brother, an operator at one of the plants on the Calcasieu River and our family politico, had been mildly relaxed about government's inadequacies and the state economy woes set off by Katrina. Another brother living out of state since college had started to dream again of going home to retire. Another, a lifelong Saints fan, believed that the Super Bowl miracle victory was a good omen. After surviving Katrina and almost losing his home, it had to be a sign. Saints fans and their long maligned team reaching the mountaintop, a good sign certainly on a commerce level.

(Wait a minute. Is that breeze after the passing threat of a rain shower fanning a faint waft of the crude? Nah. We're too far inland, aren't we? It's all in my mind? Party time, right? )

Yep, we were not gonna let the oil guzzling evil dudes drain us of these few hours of jubilee and escape. This year's crop of the red creatures that live underground had been plentiful this year -- beau coup crawfish in Creole-speak. Not a skinny one in the batch. The plumpest, juiciest I had seen them in years. "They look like mini lobsters,'' one guest gleefully blurted out, as the server piled the main attraction onto her 18-inch wide plastic plate. UmmmUmmm, "Talk About Good!''

I'm grateful for the bountiful crawfish season and relieved it's just about ending. One industry that will not be immediately impacted by the devastation only beginning in the Gulf.

Small saving grace.

Funny the things you hold on to
The handwriting on the wall

Long before the beginning of the down-spiralling of the daily newspaper and long before the family computer became a household item, I did a story on Jennifer Abrams, a fourth grader whose family were considered lifestyles pioneers of the PC. It was the '90s and the family was well into Web site construction, online researching and desktop publishing.

A year later, Jennifer's school was having career day and she suggested to a teacher that the ' ''lady reporter that made her family famous'' come and speak to her classmates. It wasn't a stretch since back in the day I often spoke officially and otherwise to young people about the virtue of reading the daily newspaper and the pursuit of journalism as a calling.

I spoke the usual that day to the students I met with, impressing upon them how important a job it is to get the facts and get it right, and edit and write well. Told them about my personal adventures in journalism and about the different types of journalism, opinion pieces, analysis, features, news reports, blah blah blah. The students were polite, as they often were, listening, even coming up with the obligatory follow-up questions, mostly to impress their teachers.

I went back to the newsroom and continued my important job. A few days later, a letter came. Yes, it was called "mail'' back in the day. I opened it and there was Jennifer's note. I laughed out loud and shared it with the colleagues, most of them fellow cynics, and I tacked it on the wall of my cubicle where it hung until years later when I said goodbye to the newspaper business.

I've always appreciated the honesty of youth. Jennifer's note, forgive the cliche, became the handwriting on the wall ("Even though no one really wanted to be a journalist...''). The sweet pat on the back was also a lesson in humility I always treasured.

Think I'll try and find her on Facebook.

It's about time, huh?

Go ahead, friend me! Poke me, too!

The fact that at this stage in life I am among “28 percent of'' and a part of "the fastest growing’’ any group blows my mind.

Got my Time featuring the Facebook cover story last weekend. It took me two days to bring myself to reading the piece and facing the music. Just as I had decided in March 2010 to join the FB community, after resisting it, if not rebelling against it, for years, just as I had reluctantly signed on only because I needed a practical cheap way to stay in touch with my college daughter studying abroad, along comes an article stressing about the evils of the mega online gathering hole.

Or, so I thought.

Not only was the Facebook Time piece reassuring to this part-time teacher and retired newspaper journalist, it was a successful virtual treatment for the social-anxiety bug I’ve been carrying in the last three months of connectivity. And, if being cured doesn’t beat all, I am actually having fun reconnecting with old friends and keeping up with current people. I know it’s nothing to brag about comparatively speaking, but, more than 200 friends and counting without trying hard.

See, four or five years ago, I had to “sign in blood’’ an agreement with my resident teenager to not ever dis-grace the pages of FB with my presence (My words. Hers were somewhat kinder). The social site was the meeting place for her demographic, not old people, she had persisted. No problem, I acquiesced. Think I would have rather taken castor oil anyway than stoop to such a level of communication. After all, I wrote respectable L-O-N-G newspaper stories for a living.

As the world would turn, my teenager grew up to be 21 early this year, and with her blessing (ha), I signed on to FB in March. It was time to shed the self-righteous response to the endless nagging requests: “Friend me?’’ Who do I think I am? There now are 28 percent like me (mature guarded narcissist), according to the Time report, hanging out on the playground, over-caring, over-thinking, over-sharing, over-informing, and in heavy traffic taking turns pontificating, venting, poking, cruising, hamming, boasting and tantrum-throwing. Not to mention over-compensating for the loss art of actual conversation.

As it turns out, we’re not too old to have friends under 30, reminding them in horror that their posts may contain TMI.

Bring on the heightened security and privacy toys, uh, tools.

Disclosure/Disclaimer: I am not tech phobic. I am not now nor have I ever been a part of the TRM (tech resistance movement). I was a card-carrying 1990s personal technology writer that attended CES annually, a PC owner and email writer since the ‘80s, a blogger since 2006, and a cell phone holder since the heavy-weighted Motorola age (Just ask AT&T). My friends call me “gadget ho’’. I own a smart phone and overuse it. And, in some clueless circles I am seriously considered an early adopter.

A REAL Tribute to the King of Pop

Michael Jackson when

"Michael'' meant Michael

Amid the tumult surrounding the sad ending to Michael Jackson’s life, I got to thinking about how I have come to terms with all the baggage that has come with being a huge admirer of the Boy Wonder and Music Genius. It’s a good time to remember that before the age of “Michael’’ when “Michael’’ meant Jordan, a world that transcended music knew Michael. As in Jackson.

As media insist on making his death the freak tabloid sensation of the early 21st century, I have been coping with the loss by reaching back in time. We tend to preserve in a recess of our mind the memories that mark or change us. They surface mostly in times of joy or sadness.

In the fall of my college freshman year at 17, I was in love with two “Michaels’’, in fact, two “MJs’’. One, my boyfriend at the time, the other, the youngest brother in the hottest boy group on the scene, The Jackson 5.

MJ The Boyfriend, and I, and friends drove 30 miles northeast from Grambling, La., to the Monroe Civic Center to bear witness to a concert put on by the popular brothers group we only had known through transistor radio blasts on every floor of every dorm on campus.

After seeing Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Michael perform and interact with the audience, I was hooked. I’ll Be There, ABC, I Want you Back. We rocked the entire show. And, what a show. Memory of other 1970 Top 10 artists – The Beatles, Jimi Hendirx, Simon & Garfunkel –quickly blurred.

I had never seen anything like them, and I fell head over heels. I resembled countless numbers of girls, boys, women and men all ages across the United States. Unanimous echoes on the drive back (in between off-key drones of ABC lyrics) turned into an anointment: “The littlest one, Michael!” We knew that his star would rise and he would become King.

Like all Michael Jackson loyals, I followed the superstar during his high times and low points professionally and privately and shouldered years of mixed emotions. At the low point, I would embrace the special feeling he and his brothers gave me at that performance, and it somehow soothed my gloom. I had taken him into my heart all those years ago. It was easy to do having brothers his age. When rumors of his abusive childhood erupted, I was in disbelief. The Jacksons seemed wholesome, much like my family. Sure they weren’t perfect, but what family is?

We now know how the story ends. Genius often leads to complexity in the human spirit. We need only point to the abundance of examples of masters throughout history. Mozart. Einstein, Hemingway. Van Gogh.

A month ago, a dear friend and I were discussing the movie Ben with our 20-year-old daughters. Long story, but the conversation boiled down to my rodent phobia, the generational divide, and the film’s once popular title song.

My friend and I reminisced about Michael Jackson, who sang the film’s theme song. That led to us talking about Jackson’s July comeback, which led to us looking online at the artist’s vintage videos.

“Why did he have to change?’’ My friend lamented, as we watched footage of Michael and the brothers from their debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. “He was so adorable, so cute,’’ we agreed.

The Jackson 5 show all those years ago remains at the top of my list of live performances, rivaling only the late ’70s Smokey Robinson concert in Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall. We like to protect our memories. So as I think of The King of Pop, and what is now a Shakespearean ending to a royal life, I will dwell on the 12-year-old boy who made this teenager feel like a princess.

(Want to pay tribute here? I welcome your feedback. Feel free to comment on your favorite Jackson 5 album and/or hit single, as well as memories of your special Michael Jackson solo. This is a Michael Jackson The Genius Safe Zone.)

Once upon a time, very very recently, there lived...

Ten happy Brownie maidens

in a kingdom not far away

Over the last two years of empty nesting, I lost sight of the fun that comes with being a Girl Scout volunteer. Got a call early June from a former fellow troop leader, explaining that our area’s local Girl
Scout council needed volunteers for summer day camp and that possibly
girls were going to be turned down if the Council couldn't meet its required adult-to-child ratio. I signed up and soon after was helping out with a 10-member Brownie unit of 6- and 7-year-olds that called themselves The Maidens in keeping with the camp theme: Medieval Manor. Girls Scouts instinctively are hard-working and smart, and they keep you on your toes. The trick is to remain standing as you lead. Thankfully, I could make good use of my old bag of strategies from seven years as a troop leader. In the end, the girls amused me and taught me a few things.

Here are choice moments from the week:


Vignette No. 1, straight from my journal...
Had a good day with Girl Scouts, but man am I wiped out. The camp theme generated a flurry of activities, crafts, songs, swaps, flag ceremonies and dances. The enthusiasm was dizzying. I'm out of practice. I was so wiped out I had to take a nap when I got home. Forgot how much I missed being around industrious girls of all ages. Some of the older scouts are from the middle school where I sometimes teach, so the first part of the day I heard a lot of "Hi Mrs. Johnson!?!?'' ricocheting from the big gym. It's funny how surprised students can be to see that teachers have a life outside of the school building. :-)

Vignette No. 2 , again, straight from the journal…
OK, today was hot hot, and I am so grateful for indoor camp activities and air-conditioned school gymnasiums. True confession: Today I discovered how out of it I am as to what the little kids are into. The one good thing about my former life as a reporter was having the Youth Beat. It kept me fresh and on top of things. So, there I was all day with 10 young Brownies smarter than me. We are one of several units, Girls K through 4. Thursday is the day units will present plays tied to the medieval theme. I had arrived late the first day and missed the production's details. Today, my Unit co-leader filled me in, telling me that the girls had opted to make their presentation a musical based on Love Story. So I thought, “Wow! That's such a modern and complicated and mature story for 7-year-olds... don't know how they will tie that all together with a medieval twist, but they seem smart and confident. More power to them.” Turns out today a small portion of the time was spent rehearsing, and that's when I found out that the Love Story musical is based on a five-minute video that is (as cool you probably already knows) a modern takeoff on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by someone named Taylor Swift. I felt so stupid. My co-leader and I had a good laugh over it. The girls are none the wiser. These little girls are sooooooooo adorable. I forgot how fabulous this age can be. They can't wait to dress up in their pretty dresses for the ball scene.

Vignette No. 3, straight from my journal…
Man, I had to skip camp today for a “self-mandatory’’ teacher training session. Today, the Brownies/maidens created the indoor version of “campfire’’ s’mores and cooked hot dogs. What lousy timing I have!

Vignette No. 4, from you know where…
I am so proud of my little maidens. They knew all the words and dance steps and gestures and wowed the audience of peers and grownups. In the end most wanted to be fair maidens because no one wanted to be Romeo or Juliet. The ring scene was too much to take. As one of the little princesses exclaimed, “I have to marry him? No way!’’ One of the two PAs played Juliet, and the other PA’s little brother, a very brave soul, showed up to do the Romeo honors. The youngest Brownie persisted -- she didn’t want to be a princess or maiden. She had preferred being a tree in the garden where the proposal would take place. She arrived this morning with fresh cut branches from her Grandma’s oak to adorn her 3-feet frame at show time. Another had preferred strumming her guitar and pretending as a traveling musician to serenade the couple in the big proposal scene. The rest lined up as maidens and formed an impressive chorus line.
Improvisation aside, I predict they will all live happily ever after.

The End

The obvious moral of the story is that you, too, can get this corny feeling you used to get as a little girl playing princess. So, if you have spare volunteer hours, please consider giving them to our little Girl Scout sisters? If we all donate time, no girl will be denied. To learn more about volunteering in the Dallas area, visit Girl Scouts of North East Texas at http://www.gsnetx.org/

EXTRA EXTRA!! There is such a thing as a free lunch

Hungry? Like chicken? Got

a printer? Hurry! Oprah

is throwing down at KFC

Hungry college students, out of work folk, families on a tight budget, KFC lovers, plain greedy people (doesn't this cover all of us), relief is on the way. The Oprah Winfrey Show, according to oprah.com, the talk program's offical Web site, is picking up the tab for your order of Kentucky Fried Chicken's newest promotion: The Grilled Chicken Meal, which also includes two sides and a biscuit.

You have to act fast, so I'll be brief. Click on the link below and download the coupon by midnight CDT. The coupon is good until May 19, not including Mother's Day, and downloads are limited to four per computer. There are a few other fine print provisions at the site, so read carefully before you rush out the door to place your order.

Click here for the coupon: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090430-tows-kfc-coupon-download

I am still doing the math based on the U.S. population (Keep in mind that I'm numbers challenged). Nonetheless, hypothetically and literally speaking, according to my very fuzzy calculation, if every American partook in a meal, wouldn't this wipe out our billionaire talk queen's coffer?

Also, strictly speaking, shouldn't KFC drop the "F'' in its logo if it is expanding its menu to include more healthy choices?

OK, if you are still reading, you're a true subscriber, and I thank you, but please be practical and crank up the printer. NOW!!

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!!

Take a 12-minute break for a jazzy duet

at open mic night from Cambridge

Here We Go Again

Here We Go Again (the finale)

On the Radio

This Is How It Goes

Out In the Cold

Historical Grambling band

can toot its own horns

for Inauguration 2009

For more than 30 years, fans around the country have watched the Grambling State University marching band perform annually at the Superdome during the NBC-TV broadcast of the Bayou Classic, a football matchup in New Orleans between rivals Grambling and Southern University of Baton Rouge.

In the middle of the game’s four quarters, the real rivalry comes in the Battle of the Bands. No matter what the text-message voting says, there is no contest, in my very biased opinion. Grambling (my alma mater) wins.

See for yourself. The Historical Black College’s renowned high steppers will take to the streets of D.C. at the inaugural parade to show what they do better than any of the rest: high step, dance, body bump and toe tap, while not missing a note. GSU is the only Louisiana school invited.

(A congratulatory letter from Sen. Mary Landrieu: http://landrieu.senate.gov/releases/08/2008C06657.html)

A college band that moves and plays simultaneously? Don’t they all? To be fair, many HBC marching bands do. But, Grambling has put the unique style on the map culturally speaking. Credit the band’s high exposure to Grambling’s football program’s success. Or, the 1966 documentary, 100 Yards to Glory, which showed off how the school groomed athletes for professional football. Credit its innovative longtime band director the late Dr. Conrad Hutchinson Jr. Whatever you do, credit them.

How clueless was I until I traveled to New York with the school’s athletes and musicians to write a lead feature story on the fall 1973 Whitney M. Young Classic at Yankee Stadium. Grambling played Baltimore’s Morgan State University, and at the time, the event was the pride of black New York. As editor-in-chief of The Gramblinite, the college’s weekly, I took the assignment on face value – an all-expense-paid trip to The Big Apple.

I had attended many Grambling football games, which meant that my main attention this trip would be elsewhere. As a novice to the city, all of 20 years old, I was hysterically caught up in the thrill, seizing a stroll down Fifth Avenue, gawking at the Empire State Building, ooh-ing over Lady Liberty and the Hudson Bay and riding a subway for the first time. And, with tremendous shortsightedness, I couldn’t wait for the Main Event. Not the football game, but its halftime performances of headliners Aretha Franklin and Patti Austin. Who wouldn’t have been taken in by it all?

Not surprisingly, Patti and the Queen of Soul played famously to the crowd. The real shock came when the G-bandsmen took to Yankee Stadium’s field. The striking black uniforms with the growling tiger face covering most of the jacket’s front, the clean white shoes and gloves, the military style hat with the vibrant gold plume. It was like I was seeing and hearing them for the first time, and I couldn’t believe my ears or my eyes. The stepping in time, the great music, the roar from the crowd.

The throng in the stadium took to their feet, everybody swaying and clapping to the rhythms of sweet soul music and Old School dance moves on the field. I distinctly recall voices around me expressing amazement over the athleticism and musical talent, as the band played a couple of R&B hits of the day. One person specifically wondered: How do they do that? They dance and play instruments at the same time? Even the percussionists! Even the tubas!

It took a new larger than life venue to appreciate that what Grambling had was and is special. I naively thought that some kind of magic occurred on the football field each time the band hit the lines. That it wasn’t the training, talent and unique skills of the musicians and the long practices that began in the heat of summer long before the rest of us showed up for fall semester. Or the strategic search for the best and brightest from all over the country.

Or that Dr. Hutchinson (Prof, as he was fondly called), the first band director, had not put the G-men on the map when he created the marching style of eight steps to five yards at 180 beats per minute. Hutchinson also introduced the lunge that was later made popular by Southern University. And was the first to bring an organ and timpani drums on the field.

Years after I graduated, some of the novelty was vanishing, however, the G-bandsmen were still kicking high and traveling the globe. They appeared in a popular TV commercial in 1981, a Coca-Cola spot and starred in numerous national sports events, including Super Bowl performances. Two decades prior, in the early '60s, there were USO shows in Cuba, Korea and the Bahamas. Later, on the invitation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, the band traveled to Monrovia, Liberia, to represent the United States at the inauguration of President William R. Tolbert Jr.

The historical college band was invited to appear in the 2000 inaugural parade, just as they will do the honor during the inauguration parade of the country’s first black president. Through what is an undeniable legacy, they will continue to step high, drum to the beat and blow to the rhythm in future inaugural parades.

Cecil Neal Jr., a 1970s member of the band and currently an assistant high school principal in Dallas, best summed up the Grambling band experience when I interviewed him in October 2004: “My grandmother was so proud of me for not just going to school, but for going to Grambling. Back in the day, it was beyond the prestige of going to Harvard.’’

Grambling prepares for Jan. 20, 2009: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/01/61512062/1

Visit Grambling State University at http://www.gram.edu/

2008 Bayou Classic performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sNqEjP6bs

Photo Credits: Tiger Yearbook,

The Gramblinite, The Dallas Morning News

Christmas tree's branches

sparkle with special gifts

Part of 8-year-old Richard Fogarty's holiday fantasy has come true. Neiman Marcus brought to life his original drawing of a Fantasy Christmas tree decorated with wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, crutches and other treasures used by students with special needs. The young Dallas artist's idea was to design a tree featuring the many gifts Texas Scottish Rite Hospital For Children has given to its patients over the years. Richard was diagnosed at birth with Poland's Syndrome, (http://www.polands-syndrome.com/), a rare congenital condition resulting in underdeveloped chest muscle and webbing of the fingers and hand. Richard's right hand and pectoral muscle are missing.
"Richard is the strongest, most amazing child. When he was in kindergarten, kids would tuck their arms into their sleeves with only their elbow hanging out so they could 'be more like Richard because he was so cool,' '' says the best friend of Richard's mom, Lori.
Neiman Marcus asked 52 youngsters to submit drawings for the fundraiser. Richard's artwork is among six that designers used to create actual trees. The six "masterpieces'' are now showcased on the downtown store's first floor. Shoppers can place bids on the trees, which will be auctioned off before Christmas. Proceeds will benefit Dallas' St. Philip's School and Community Center and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital For Children.
Throughout the holiday season, visitors also can see the collection of the 52 drawings, which are on display in the store's sixth floor lobby.
The rest of Richard's fantasy will come true when he wins your vote for the favorite among the six winners. To see Richard's creation and cast your vote, go to
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/service/poll.jhtml?pollCode=trees&icid=LocalStorePageTwo .

The Color Pink, All Grown Up

“Daddy, why do we have to have a pink house?’’ the girl had asked for the bazillionth time of the screaming wood frame structure on the corner of Cherry Street. “Your mother likes pink,’’ would be her father’s short unrelenting reply.
“It’s embarrassing. My classmates make fun of it.’’ She would whine. “Too bad they don’t know how special it is,’’ he would firmly say. The girl knew the nonconforming overpowering carnation pink color, the crayon in the box she had grown to hate, would cover the house for the long haul. She also knew that sharing her Dad’s explanation with friends would be even more awkward.
She had lived for more than a decade in the 1950s two-bedroom double shotgun on cinder blocks, a home her parents had had built the year she was born. Now that junior high had arrived, she could hardly contain her humiliation. Her parochial school was on the other end of the block, and each day her classmates would walk home from school, passing by 626 North Cherry Street, staring and asking, “Why do you live in a pink house?’’ Some would snicker, some would whisper behind her back at school, “She lives in a pink house.’’
By high school, her Dad had grown weary of the constant question. Either that or her parents were tired of the color. The girl’s family also had grown, and her father remodeled and enlarged the house and at last painted it white to complement the other wooden and brick homes on the paved street that held the lives of 20 or so working class families.
The teasing stopped as teenagers’ memories of the pink house faded. And the little girl, now practically grown up, proudly walked up and down the concrete front porch steps and sidewalk to and from the ends of Cherry Street.
If only she had known then what she knows now, sophisticated things like the meaning of pure love and the power of personal preference?
Four decades later, when she would grow up and read about the “Pepto-Bismol’’ pink house in The Secret Lives of Bees, there would be an instant appreciation for its anachronistic appeal. Author Sue Monk Kidd set the stage for the poetic aptness of the dwelling’s color. The girl, now a woman, couldn’t imagine a more perfect staging for the Boatwright sisters whose mother had bravely named them August, May and June.
There had been an epiphany long before the novel about the beekeepers. Fifteen years earlier the girl from the pink house had been awed by the sight of the colorful Victorian cottages lining streets of historic Oak Bluffs, Massachusets, on Martha’s Vineyard.
A "lifetime'' before those two events, the girl, by then a young woman, had gone home to visit her father only to find that he had painted the stark white house a striking canary yellow with forest green trim. Her mother had passed away by then.
Overcome with curiosity, she felt compelled to ask, “What made you paint the house, Dad?’’ His reply was characteristically brief.
“I did it for me. I like color.’’

(PHOTO ILLUSTRATION of Oak Bluffs, MA cottage : Jean Nash Johnson)

(SKETCH: Michael R. Johnson)

Friendly Holiday Greetings

From a Hoarder in the Green

Listen, I’m not really a hoarder. In spite of my friends' ridicule, I am the most eco-minded among them. What I am is a sentimentalist, which causes me to hang on to things longer than the average person.
I’ve been keeping Christmas cards I’ve received through the years for, um, let’s just say some of the card companies and senders are no longer around. The good news is that this season I’m letting go of them, recycling the vintage greetings to those on this year's card list.
Some may call this socially tacky, I call it environmentally kind. Every year, with my desktop publishing and PC art wizardry, I hand-design my card, spending hours working on a prototype, personalizing it, testing it, and printing all 100 or so myself, using tons of printer ink and paper. As sweet a gesture as it is, how wasteful and costly. When the season ends most of us collect the cards we exchanged and either toss them or keep them.
For those that prefer the old-fashioned postal greetings over e-cards, take some time to consider this recycling idea this year when the economy is so bleak? Here’s what you need and how to do it:
· Heavier 8 1/2x11 card stock printer paper, preferably recyclable brand
· Invitation or greeting card envelopes
· A pair of scissors or paper cutter
· Glue stick or double-sided tape
· Greeting cards received from holidays past
Slice off the front of each card with scissors or cutter. Fold each printer sheet into half page or quarter page to create a blank card. Attach the old card front you snipped to the front of each blank card using glue or tape. Inside the card, write, "Holidays Wishes!'' "Merry Christmas!'' "Kwanzaa Blessings!" "Happy Hanukkah! Sign your name. You're done.
The whole thing should cost less than $10, and you get a free conscience in the bargain. Maybe you can pass the idea along to your circle? If you didn’t save your cards from previous years, this season is a good time to start.
Haven’t checked with my dear friend, Letitia Baldridge (I really have met her and interviewed her for several articles on manners), but I’ll go out on a limb to say my only etiquette rules are: Do not recirculate the popular family photo greeting cards you receive. And, do not send last year’s card back to the same person that sent it to you. Now, that would be tacky!

Check out the ultimate in the green Christmas card and meet the accidental eco-pioneer behind it.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2008/12/02/mi.60.year.old.xmas.card.wdiv

The Scene: October in Beantown
The 10th month on the calendar is designed for travel. Plan next year's escape to Boston, when the summer crowds evaporate, the company's fourth quarter earning are determined and the holiday mad dashing is leashed. I'm somewhat of an expert on this time of year in New England since half of my dozen or so visits there occurred in October. Here are my must-stops.

The Kennedy Library: With the Democrats back in office, it's time to revisit the era of our 35th president. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/, a stunning I.M. Pei design, is located on the 10-acre waterfront park on Columbia Point. Take in the views of the harbor and skyline. The exhibits change, and if you're lucky, the dresses Jackie wore as first lady will be on display. Call ahead for exhibit information; hopefully the admission will keep at $10. There's a free shuttle to the T's Red Line JFK Library/UMass stop, which runs takes you to other key Boston areas and Cambridge. There's also free parking at the library. Did you know that 95 percent of Ernest Hemingway's writings is housed in the Kennedy library?

The Head of the Charles: My first venture into Cambridge a few years ago coincided with the October week of the world's largest regatta. Had no idea why there was such a hubbub, and I found the crowd around Harvard Square an inconvenience. Now that I know a Radcliffe Crew member that competes in the annual event, I'm a big-time fan. I got to see the competition from the Harvard Boathouse on the Charles River. That vantage point is by invitation-only. There are great spots along the river to cheer, gawk and marvel over the rowing sights in the best of fair-like atmosphere. Spectators from around the globe buzz about. It's fun to listen in on the accents and languages. Sponsors' vendors are among the most civilized I've seen. The smells from the wide range of food concessions, however, tempt you from every direction. Still trying to decide if I like fried dough. Speaking of dough, this event is free. http://www.hocr.org/home/default.asp

Wompatuck State Park: There arguably is no more beautiful colors of nature than New England's fall foliage. If you want to take it in in one vibrant fell swoop, visit Wompatuck, 11 miles from Boston in Hingham on the southern shore. Wompatuck is quiet in October, allowing nature seekers to take in authentic sounds of the woods' inhabitants. If you drive through, cruise at a slow speed so you don't miss the brilliance of maples in reds, yellows and oranges. If you're hiking or biking, along the way, stop and perch on one of the giant stones for one of the many panoramas. Ponds strewn throughout are covered with lily pads waiting to brace the occasional leaping frog. For sportsmen, horseback riding and boating (nonmotorized) are available. The cost of serenity is free.

(PHOTOS: Jean Nash Johnson)

YES, THEY CALL ME

'TEXAS PUMPKIN LADY'

And who can blame them? From Labor Day to Thanksgiving, I obsess over a fruit that got its roots far away from the Lone Star State. Did my obsession subconsciously began when I learned that the mother of all gourds was responsible for getting Cinderella to the Ball? Or, was it when I discovered in Peanuts that Linus' "Great One'' almost made a hero out of George Schultz's block-headed Charlie Brown? No. My righteous lusting began fall 1989 when the Jersey Girl escorted me and The Pumpkin Tot out of a Texas "pumpkin patch'' carting our over sized lopsided prize, insisting we carve it. "Carve what, how and why? I'm not an artist!" I had protested. Jack 'O Lanterns belonged in Halloween storybooks, my Southern childhood had taught me. But Pumpkin Tot was intrigued and grew to be Pumpkin Girl, and the masterpieces were crafted and a new tradition born. I have been fixating ever since on all things pumpkin. Pumpkin kitsch, all sorts, and pumpkin scented candles. Pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin bread, toasted pumpkin seeds (with sprinkles of Cajun spices), pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake. (The ice cream is store-bought). Where's the pumpkin pie, some may wonder? That's where I draw the line on tradition. There is no "traditional'' pumpkin pie at my Thanksgiving dinner? On Turkey Day, my adoration ends, and the pumpkin turns into the humble sweet potato. Like magic there's the irresistible Sweet Potato Pie, and I turn back into a Southern Lady until next Labor Day.

(The Texas-sized carving pictured is courtesy of the Pumpkin Girl, who at 19 is still turning out award winning work. It could not have been easy the last two years pulling off prize winners in Jersey Girl country!)

Pardon me, but, speaking of Turkey Day, check out this funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kjM1asH-8&fmt=18

That gal, Sarah Palin! Wow!

Disclaimer: (Pardon me, again, if you've been awake the last 24 hours and already have seen the video.)

BIG ELECTION OF 1960

Long-Awaited Historic Vote Spawns a Family's Legacy

Less than two days away from the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, and still I am in awe of the Nov. 4, 2008 election results. Considering where this country was 48 years ago, I hadn't seen its outcome coming.
In the Southwest Louisiana city of Lake Charles, population 63,000-plus, Friday, Oct. 7, 1960, was the end of another ordinary workweek, capped off that evening with the television broadcast of the second of four Kennedy-Nixon debates.
Issue No. 1 for Sen. John F. Kennedy had been the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Vice President Richard M. Nixon had made much to-do over Kennedy’s youth and inexperience, insisting he could not be trusted.
Routine as the day seemed for residents, it was a defining moment for Mrs. Alce Nash, my mother, who early that morning had registered to vote for the first time.
She was 33, a child of The Great Depression, daughter of a cotton farmer. A wife of a World War II veteran-turned-oil refinery worker, homeowner and stay-home mom of six. A born Catholic and Southerner – and an African American of Creole heritage.
Fueled after the Depression by the growing petrochemical industry, Lake Charles, the bustling seat of Calcasieu Parish, about 60 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, had become an economic enticement around the state for those in search of a better life.
My parents had laid down roots there after the war. For my mother, finally having the right to vote along with my Dad in the upcoming presidential election made her feel privileged, meant that her family would move closer to living the American Dream.
Getting there hadn’t been easy. Though the 15th and 19th amendments granting blacks and women voting rights had long been enacted, many Southern blacks, women especially, were reluctant to participate, leery of the process and afraid of repercussions, my mother had explained in later years.
Mama died prematurely in 1982 at 55. She carried in her wallet the worn 1960 voter’s registration card until the day she passed away. Through her experience she gave her descendants a strong voting legacy.
During Jim Crow in the Deep South, underhanded voting tactics created frustration for black people. The poor were disqualified from registering because they couldn’t afford high poll taxes. Colored people and poor whites that couldn’t read and write and sign their name were barred. Powerful whites pressured the few eligible Negroes that had means and education into voting the interests of those controlling the polls.
Distrust of the process “was all hush-hush, but it was there,’’ says my mother’s youngest sister, Emily Lawrence, 69, now a Californian. (My aunt and I chatted by phone last month during her visit to Louisiana.) “I guess the thought was that your vote wouldn’t count, and even if it did, was it worth risking your life? At that time, there was talk about poll violence in other states.’’

When Kennedy arrived, so did a greater urgency among the disadvantaged to take part in the process. Among African Americans, Kennedy represented a new spirit, as blacks slowly began inching away from strict segregation. The Supreme Court had overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, and the Brown v. Board of Education decision emerged. With the help of an Eisenhower Administration Justice Department voting rights’ policy, separate but equal was taking on wider interpretation.
To retrace Mama’s steps that October day based on family storytelling (I was only 7), that morning, she woke up at 5:30 and put on a pot of Seaport chicory coffee. My Dad was due in from the graveyard shift at Cities Service Oil Refinery Co. in an hour, and her brood would be waking up for breakfast and the school day.

Slow and Deliberate Change

After seeing four of us off to classes, she and Daddy, dressed in their Sunday best, traveled about 15 minutes with the two younger boys in the family’s '56 Chevy to the downtown courthouse. Entering through the “Colored’’ entrance in the rear, she would register to vote.
By all accounts, she and Daddy intentionally played down the historic moment in the presence of whites they encountered in the court house building. They returned home and eventually voted Nov. 8.
“When Kennedy came along, it seemed to change everything,’’ says Mrs. Lawrence, my aunt, recalling the excitement in rural St. Landry Parish where my mother was born and raised, about 100 miles east of Lake Charles.
In 1959 and ’60, when my aunt wasn't going to school or working on my grandparents’ Opelousas, LA. farm, she and other 11th and 12th graders at the black high school were volunteering to help illiterate adults learn how to read and fill out voter registration forms and practice signing their names.

Kennedy energized once disenfranchised blacks. He pledged a New Frontier and space exploration and vowed to grow the economy. There also was the promise of his age. Black Americans were convinced that Kennedy’s youth and “Yankee’’ roots would better equip him to preside over the inevitable groundswell of civil rights activism.
Older black women were reticent, Aunt Emily explains. “Women knew their place. It wasn't in the voting booth.’’ Staff from the parish registrar’s office and volunteers in the community worked hard to convince would-be voters that voting was a right and that women didn't need permission from their husbands, my aunt recalls.

Quiet Heroes and Unsung Champions

In Lake Charles, similar steps took place. It’s likely that my mother had been turned away in previous attempts to register when she had been unable to recite verbatim the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. This only was hearsay. The

memory was too painful for her to retell, I suppose. But I have a clearer understanding of why in our schoolwork she had browbeaten us into memorizing the Preamble and The Gettysburg Address. To this day I can spout both at a moment’s notice.
Voting the first time was sacred though anticlimactic, Mama once confessed. Conquering the registration hurdle had been the greater triumph, and the Election Day result was even more exalting. Her vote had counted. The Life Magazine January ’61 issue heralding the inauguration remained the centerpiece on the living room coffee table a year after the vote.
The fortitude ignited by the Kennedy-Nixon race had a lasting effect on that generation and the future. After the 1960 vote and the passage of the voting rights bill in ‘65, my once reserved mother and my father became uncompromisingly active in the Democratic Party, volunteering to give voters rides on Election Day, canvassing neighborhoods to get out the vote, working the precincts and preaching the gospel, according to the founding fathers, of a most precious citizen’s right.

A Legacy for a Louisiana Family

“The country passed through challenging times back then. Kennedy’s assassination. Selma. March on Washington. Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy. Then, Roe v. Wade and Bakke (University of California v. Bakke),’’ Aunt Emily lists off. “So much changed, and we all wanted to have a part in it so that we could make it better for our children and their children.
“When I reflect back, I think about how similar these times are. In 2004, I got so angry at young people when they told me, ‘I don’t need to vote. It’s just one vote.’ I screamed back at them, ‘Your vote counts, and people died and fought hard for that vote.’ Hopefully, this time they got the message. This (2008) election is very important.’’
Much has changed since my mother’s Depression-era girlhood. She and my father and many other African Americans of the time helped redefine the once Jim Crow- influenced Democratic Party in the South. They have passed the baton.
In this post 2008 Election Day time, parallels to 1960 can not be overlooked. Barack Obama’s candidacy has fired up a new breed of citizens dramatically similar to the grass roots electorate JFK inspired.
Still, the idea of change looms as large as the notion of how little has not changed. This election season with its disturbing news accounts of robo calls, vote fraud, race baiting, faulty machines, assassination attempts and underhanded campaigning maneuvers, remind the voting public of how much more this country has to grow up.
That my mother’s children and grandchildren in 2008 could choose to vote in primary elections for the first viable woman candidate for president, and on Nov. 4, could help to elect the first black U.S. president, has no doubt exceeded her dreams.