Looking back at 2013

           The Christmas wrapping paper's in the recycle bin, the eggnog carton is empty and there's only crumbs in the cookie tin. No more "Frosty the Snowman" on the radio, there's a gazillion diet articles being published and we're lining up at fireworks stands to ring in the new year.

            But before we light up the Roman candles, let's take a look back at some of the high, and low, points of 2013.

            We added two new words to the dictionary. The first was Obamacare. No matter if you feel like we've taken a step toward Mother Russia by making everybody sign up or we're finally taking care of those who need medical care but can't afford it, Obamacare is now officially part of America's lexicon.

            Unfortunately, we added a horrible word, "twerking," thanks to a how-low-can-she-go reinvented Miley Cyrus. I cringe thinking that the only way for a young woman to be taken seriously is to flaunt her practically naked body and stick her tongue out.

            But then I remember two young women the same age as the Cyrus train wreck -- Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who was shot by terrorists but continues to speak out for equality for women, and Elizabeth Smart who shows grace, class and courage by encouraging women to stay strong no matter what happens to them. Those two outshine celebrity blips like Cyrus every day of the year.

            Then there's the pair of Southern favorites who made the headlines. Butter's best friend Paula Deen was lambasted for her racial comments, and down-home ZZ-Top clone Phil Robertson was vilified for his comments about homosexuality. I wish we spent as much time talking about how to make sure no one goes to bed hungry as we did about these two.

            We spent a lot of time in front of our flat-screen TVs this year, thanks to popular series like "Breaking Bad," "Downton Abbey," "Game of Thrones" and "Mad Men." As a writer, it's refreshing to see people flock to the small screen because of excellent story lines.

            Americans continue to line up at movie theaters that boast bigger-than-life 3-D action while watching Hobbits battle beasts with names we can't pronounce.

            Millions plunked down their movie watcher cards to see Robert Downey Jr. beat up bad guys in 'Iron Man 3." Romantics flocked to see the "Twilight" movies but rock-'em, sock-'em movies beat out love -- $409 million for our favorite Marvel super hero versus $69 million for the star-crossed vampires.

            No matter how much we tried to escape reality, anguish washed over us in 2013. On Patriot's Day, two vile bombers killed innocent people who were watching the Boston Marathon, and, a year later, we still have no answers as to how someone could walk into a quiet elementary school and kill innocent children.

            We continue to hold our breath as North Korea rattles its atomic missiles, we keep a wary eye on the Middle East and fear the Chinese. But all is right in the SEC world because Nick Saban decided to stay at the University of Alabama and not come to Texas.

            A new leader for the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, reminded us that the best blueprint for life is to not judge others for who they are but to embrace all people, from gays to sinners to believers to non-believers.

            None of us know what 2014 will bring but if we follow the example of Pope Francis, Malala and Elizabeth, I think we'll start off on the right foot.

            Happy New Year!

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

For Sam, With Love

            Growing up Catholic, there's a few givens – we'll feel guilty about most things in life, a crucifix is a staple in our home and we will always be surrounded by cousins.

            Guilt is the cornerstone of my life, the crucifix – with holy water – hangs in my dining room and I have 27 first cousins on my Dad's side and 25 first cousins on my Mom's side.

            Our family had a lot in common with our cousins in Lake Charles, La., mostly because we had a cousin our age. I hung out with Sylvia who was one year older than me. Mark was my brother Jimmy's age and so on right down the line.

            In the middle of that interlacing was my cousin Sam. His escapades were legendary. If the "Indiana Jones" movies were running back then, we'd have all bet the Baltimore Catechist that Sam was the closest thing to Indy we'd ever seen.

            He was up early and went to bed late. He was the one climbing every tree in the yard. Once, Sam rode his bike off the roof and he and the Schwinn got tangled up in the clothesline, narrowly escaping broken bones. He ran away from home at least once a week, and he did all that with a huge, I double-dog-dare-you smile on his face and a laugh that lit up the world.

            Sam believed in taking a chance, because, he said, no matter where you landed, the ride was so much fun.

 Striking Out

            When Sam was 17, my uncle said since Sam thought he knew everything, he should get out on his own. Sam took on all kinds of odd jobs to make ends meet. Eventually he started his own building company but then he began working with New York Life.

            Sam worked hard to catch up on all the financial lingo and never stopped believing in himself. Twenty eight years later, Sam is the 2013 New York Life Council President with more sales than any other agent in the country.

            According to an article written about Sam, he accomplished this goal by changing how he looked at life. He looked inside himself for answers and stopped blaming others.

            He altered his outlook, from life being a series of unfair hurdles to seeing life as manageable opportunities. Over the years, he built a wildly successful business.

            He and his wife, Denise, are the proud parents of two beautiful daughters, a handsome son and they're the hosts for the weekly Hebert Sunday dinner and the annual Hebert family reunion.

            When my father passed away, Sam was the first person at the funeral home and his shoulder was one I sobbed on. Later, it was a unanimous decision for us to give Sam my Dad's ring because Sam was one of my Dad's favorite nephews.

             Sam wears that ring every single day, and I love how he cherishes my dad's memory and models my Dad's passion for adventure.

            Through all the ups and downs in his life, Sam's blueprint for success is straight forward – envision a life that for you is ideal, hitch your intentions to that vision, plan not to fail and then go make it happen.

            As I watch a YouTube video of Sam's talk to NYL agents, I can still picture that gangly kid on his banana seat bicycle, an impish smile on his face, ready to take on the next challenge.

            I'm grateful every time I think about that wild child cousin who's now influencing others to follow their dreams. Even if it means hitching yourself to a bike and riding it off a roof to get there.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Trying to get into the spirit

            Ho, Ho, Ho. Merry Christmas.

            Or so the sentiment goes.

            Although I love this time of the year, I procrastinate about Christmas decorating more than any other holiday.

            For the Fourth of July, I bake that red, white and blue sprinkle cake two days early. Two weeks before Halloween arrives, I've stocked up on candy bars and lollipops.

            The Sunday before Thanksgiving, I've got the turkey defrosting in the fridge and all the ingredients for pecan pie, sweet potato casserole and cornbread dressing lined up on the counter.

            However, Christmas is one holiday where I put off decorating until the very last minute. It's not that I don't have reminders all around. Stores put up Christmas decorations right after Labor Day and the ad flyers appear in the newspaper starting in October.

            It's not that I'm a Scrooge. I'm tuning into FM 99.1 on Thanksgiving Day so I can start listening to Christmas songs, my favorite being Nat King Cole crooning about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

            It's simply that I have a hard time getting excited about taking down 10 boxes from the attic, unpacking them, taking down and putting up decorations and then reversing the process two weeks later.

 

The Guilt

            There's plenty of reminders that I'm dragging my feet. I see families dressed up in holiday sweaters taking pictures for their Christmas cards and I cringe – one year, I sent my Christmas cards out in February.

            I look online at friends' posts on Facebook, and they're already two weeks into the "Elf on the Shelf" adventure. I'm still trying to figure out how to play that game.

            Most of my friends already have red and green Christmas towels in the guest bathrooms along with ceramic Santa soap dispensers. I've never seen the practicality of paying almost $10 for a towel I'm going to look at – horrors of horrors if anyone actually wiped their hands on that towel – for less than a month.

            Driving around town, I feel guilty as I see house after house with a lighted Christmas tree in the front window. To rub salt in the wound, most of my friends had their tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving.

            I rationalize my delay comes from going through so much work for such a short period of time.

            When I put drapes up, I expect them to look good for at least 10 years. I keep couches for at least 15 years and once I buy bedroom furniture, it's in that bedroom for good.  

            For Christmas, not only do I move furniture and knick-knacks around and spend all afternoon sweeping up pine needles and wrapping presents, the whole time I'm wondering why I'm doing then because it's all over in a day and then, two weeks later, I get to do all those chores in reverse.

            I've tried all the rationalizations – it's the spirit of the holidays so get over the amount of time it takes to put up the decorations. I've even tried boot camp thinking – stop the whining, get down the boxes and create a festive atmosphere for my family.

            I've tried guilt – what a Scrooge I am for not jumping on the Santa band wagon right after Thanksgiving so I can enjoy Christmas longer.

            Nothing works. Besides, my procrastination has paid off.

            One year, we got our Christmas tree for half off because I waited so long to get it.

            Sigh.

            I can see Santa putting coal in my stocking right now.

            And I deserve it.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Enjoying the classics on a cold Texas night

            When we first moved to Texas, we got some good advice about the weather. If we didn't like it, just wait a couple of days. It would change.

            That's certainly true of the weather this week. We started out with blue skies and summer temperatures. By the end of the week, we'll be back in the 30's with an 80 percent chance of rain.

            No wonder we're all sniffling and sneezing.

Shunning the Cold

            Because I'm a Southerner by choice, cold weather is a repellent for me, and I hibernate inside until the mercury rises above 70 degrees.

            I've found a lot of ways to keep myself occupied while waiting for the sun to return – cleaning out closets, rearranging furniture and, when the arctic blast lasts for more than a week, categorizing my T-shirts by color.

            But working around the house gets old, so if I know the mercury's on the way down, I head to a Fort Bend County library for a few classic movies or I search online for some of the best movies from my childhood.

            One of my all-time favorites is "Some Like It Hot" with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. Although Monroe lights up the screen, it's Jack Lemmon who really steals the show.

            I've watched "It's A Wonderful Life" at least 50 times because I never tire of the story of how Clarence earns his wings and how George Bailey comes to understand he's really a blessed man.

            My mom gave me a love of the melodramas from the 1950s and 1960s. I can't count the number of times we sat through "Imitation of Life" with Lana Turner. We always cried when Annie dies and her daughter realizes how wonderful her mother had been throughout her life.

            "Madame X" is another Hebert Girl classic, and I tear up just thinking of the ending scene where Lana Turner's son comforts her on her death bed, not realizing she's his mother.

 The Master – Cary Grant

            Today's teens think actors like Orlando Bloom and Channing Tatum are the epitome of dashing and debonair. They don't have a clue that the grand master of cool sexy is Mr. Archibald Leach, otherwise known as Cary Grant.

            He's known for many roles, but my mom's favorite, and mine, is "An Affair to Remember." I identified with Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell in "Sleepless in Seattle, which relies heavily on the Grant movie, because like them, I'd memorized huge passages of that film. And, yes, winter is cold for those with no warm memories...

            Movies that always make me feel better on those cold rainy days are the old MGM musicals. There's no way a person can stay miserable when Gene Kelly's dancing and singing in the rain. Nor can viewers keep from smiling when the Pontipee brothers are singing about "Sobbin' Women" in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

            My favorite snippet on YouTube is the opening song from "Fiddler on the Roof" because my family has watched that movie together so many times, we sing along with every song and recite the dialog along with Tevye.  

            Watching movies together is a tradition that binds the Hebert Nation, just as it did my mom and me so many years ago when we'd snuggle together on the couch and watch old movies on rainy, cold Sunday afternoons.

            Most of the time, I want the rainy cold to go away. But when I'm huddled underneath a blanket, watching Cary Grant, Lana Turner and Jimmy Stewart, there's no place else I'd rather be.  

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.