Easter when I was a child

It hit me from out of nowhere this morning as I began to unload the dishwasher.

Tomorrow is Easter, and I am missing my childhood.

Growing up, I never wanted to grow up. My grandparents all lived in Arkansas, so my parents and I would pack up the car and drive the seven hours to see them. We went at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

Packing for the Easter trip was special because I had to bring my new Easter dress, spring coat, white shoes, and my Easter basket.

The egg hunt was always held on the big front lawn of my grandparent's home, a house built by my great-grandfather in 1900. In the cool, misty morning I'd run out with my cousins to search for the eggs among the jonquils and tall grass around the trees and along the front of the house.

We always dyed eggs the night before. My grandmother would put on a big pot of boiling water to boil them and then we'd all gather around the table to use those messy little wire egg holders to dunk our eggs. The older cousins were more patient, and they let their eggs sit long enough to take on deep jewel-toned hues. The younger ones, including me, were so anxious to be done with the dyeing that we ended up with pastel colors. We always tried to put on those egg tattoos so we'd have cute pictures on the eggs, but they always smeared.

Sometimes I spent Easter with my mother's parents at the big house. Sometimes I spent it at my dad's mother's house.

There, it was just my parents, my grandmother, and me so my mom would hide eggs in Grandma's living room for me to find. I always got an Easter basket full of wonderful things -- little toys, a new stuffed bunny or duck, sometimes a book or art supplies.

My grandmother was a lay reader in the town's Christian Science church so we'd get dressed up and go with her. Seems like we always sang the Martin Luther hymn, "All Power is Given Unto Our God" at some point in the service.

To this day, when I hear that hymn I see my little Dutch grandmother standing up at the front of the church singing.

It's been nearly 20 years since she passed, and I still miss her.

My other grandparents are gone now, too. So's my dad.

And I find myself in the role of grownup, preparing my own four children to celebrate the holiest day in the Christian calendar.

We've got the baskets, we'll dye the eggs, we'll go to church and we'll sing of Easter gladness.

I'll fight back the tears for a childhood long gone, and focus instead on the hope my own children represent, and on the great hope of which Easter reminds us -- that life IS eternal for those who follow Christ Jesus and that some day I'll see my dad and my grandparents again.

"And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." (John 16:22)

When we're 53 . . .

Talking on the phone with a long-time friend this afternoon, I got to thinking about the achievement that is lifelong friendship.

My friend Jennifer Meier and I have known each other since 7th grade. She sat in front of me in Mr. Baker's general science class. Neither one of us remembers much about his class, but we recall vividly how our friendship was born.

I needed a pen.

Jennifer had a spare.

I didn't say our beginning was a spectacular one. It has, however, withstood the test of time.

We've been in each others weddings. I was at the birth of her son. We've made renegade runs to West Texas to visit her relatives, folks who took me in like I'd been born one of their own.

Together we've ditched unruly boyfriends and friend-friends. We've wrapped houses. We've engaged in minor vandalism. We've slept over at each others houses, eaten freely from each others kitchens, and talked about every single topic known to man not just once but many, many times.

We've spent a lot of time sitting under black lights listening to really loud music -- long before this was a popular feature of trendy clubs. Those are years of my life I'll never get back, but at the time it seemed so important to just sit, listen, and think (inasmuch as one can with Led Zeppelin blasting at 140 decibels).

We've slept out in line all kinds of weather for tickets to see our favorite rock bands.

We've camped all over south Texas, again in all kinds of weather, because we could.

We've always promised that if either of us needed to kill an unwelcome visitor, the other would bring a shovel to help dig the hole -- no questions asked.

She's a public school teacher -- one of the finest -- and has always encouraged and supported my choice to homeschool.

We once ran into a high school -- no, really, we ran into the building itself -- on a three-wheeler her West Texas uncle loaned us. He made us promise not to ride through the town cemetery. We honored his request for the most part. Her mother told us to stay off the highway. That just wasn't possible.

It's a wonder we've made it to adulthood.

Even though I graduated from college, I didn't go through the whole cap and gown ceremony. It was such a privilege to attend her's when she graduated with her Masters in Education.

Lately, within the past three years, I've started attending her family tragedies. Jennifer lost her mother two years ago, her beloved stepson just last month.

Both times she told me I didn't have to make the two-hour drive to the funeral. I told her I couldn't NOT make those drives.

I've been fortunate these past several years. Potential tragedies in my own family have either been non-existent, easily mitigated, or postponed indefinitely. I hope Jennifer doesn't have to make the two-hour drive to see me for unpleasant reasons any time soon.

So now we're thinking that just as married people celebrate wedding anniversaries, employees celebrate their five- or ten- or twenty-year marks with a company, or parents celebrate the births of their children with an annual party, we should start planning our own 40th Friendship Anniversary party.

We'll both be 53 by then, but Jennifer says it'll just make all our old stories that much funnier.

She knows how to make those video slideshows so I told her I'd bring all my old photos (I was always taking pictures) and she could put 'em to the music that moved us way back when.

"All the other people in the room will be sittin' there wondering why those photos are so funny and why we're the only ones laughing so hard," I said. "Yeah," she said, " that will be the best part of all!"

Oh, and we've agreed we're going to take a trip somewhere really awesome all by ourselves -- just the two of us, two women of the 50-something persuasion who know keenly and firsthand what it's like to have friends longer than you've had spouses or children.

Where we'll go is anyone's guess, but Jennifer says at least part of the trip should retrace our wild and woolly steps across West Texas, three-wheeler, highschool, and all.

Amen, sister. Amen!

Screw you, Charles Schumer!

Wow.

I try to be civil, polite even, when it comes to differences of opinion. I respect people's right to think what they want, provided what they think doesn't endanger my ability to function within my own constitutional rights.

But this is my 'blog and I don't have to entertain idiots if I don't want to.

I'm pretty peeved with New York Sen. Charles Schumer, a man whose complete and total disdain for Texas is summed up in the following quote.

"When people from Paris, Beijing, Tokyo and Amsterdam start saying they want to go to Houston, maybe then they'll get a shuttle," Schumer told the Daily News. "I'd say to Texas, don't mess with New York."

Schumer has his knickers in a wad over Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz's efforts to have one of the retired space shuttles sent to Houston rather than to some air and space museum in New York City.

Never mind that New York City had absolutely nothing to do with the birth of the American manned spaceflight program.

Schumer is typical of so many loud-mouthed, liberal Yankees who think everyone south of the Mason-Dixon is redneck, hillbilly, and downright dumb.

Did I mention that Houston was home to the finest collection of scientists, mathematicians and engineers during the pre-Apollo and Apollo years?

Yeah, and did I also mention that my dad -- born in small town Arkansas -- was one of them and that I'm still so proud of his contributions to the space program that I tell his story to my children on a regular basis?

New York will probably get to keep the shuttle that's rightfully ours, and that's okay. Way down here in Texas, we know the truth.

What a pity Sen. Schumer is too stupid to know it, too.

Finding God in the small things

For some time now, I've been meaning to compile a list of good things that have happened to either me or to someone in my family -- things that just seemed to fall out of the sky, happenstance or, as I believe, God-derived.

A good friend of mine lost her 21-year-old son to a tragic mix of drugs and alcohol last month. As I started on my 90-minute trip down to the funeral, I stopped by my local Starbucks to get an iced tea and a snack. I'd had no breakfast and didn't want to be late for the service, so I went through the drive-through.

As I pulled up to pay for and receive my order, the cashier told me, "Put your money away. The man in front of you has already paid your bill."

I started crying.

"You don't understand," I said, as the young man looked on bewildered, obviously wondering what in the world would prompt such an outpouring of emotion. "I'm on my way to the funeral of a dear friend's son and I've been so sad about this. I really needed something good to happen today."

Then he asked me if I wanted to continue the chain of giving by paying for the order of the person behind me. I gladly agreed and hoped as I drove away that in some small way I'd blessed them.

Recently, I needed someone else to transport my children to various activities because I was unable to drive them myself. A good friend who leads my daughter's scout troop willingly agreed to take my girls to scouts. Another friend picked my son up for his gymnastics class and yet another friend kindly brought him home.

My oldest daughter has been working on her Junior Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest award a girl can earn at the junior level. Her troop decided to make and collect tote bags to take down to the Shriner's Children's Hospital in Galveston. This facility treats free of charge children from all over the world who have been burned.

I put out the word to a few friends that we needed tote bags. I figured we might collect 50 or maybe even 100 with any luck at all.

My daughter collected about 400 bags.

They came from friends of a long-distance cousin, the company my husband works for, the company a good family friend works for, several homeschool moms I've known for some years, my in-laws. Tote bags seemed to rain down from heaven and my daughter was absolutely thrilled.

Awhile back I wrote about a family we are trying to help. My children's piano teacher overheard me on the phone one day and after she was finished teaching she told me she, too, wanted to help this family. She's planning to bring me a gift card to give to them for Easter.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a million other small ways in which God has shown Himself to us these past several months and I'm thinking now I should keep a running list on my kitchen wall so everyone -- particularly my children -- can see how He works in our lives every single day.

It's humbling beyond measure, and I think it comes only as we are willing to give up ourselves and be led by something far greater than any of us. It's so much easier to follow than it is to try to lead and like so many other weary and tired sheep, I am grateful for the Shepherd who always seems to know what is needed when it is needed.

Divine Love (God) always has met and always will meet every human need.

Humiliation of children in the name of education

It's not often I get a "two-fer" when I log in to read the latest headlines, but today was one of those red letter days.

Two stories about the abuse of children by their respective schools or educators jumped out at me as I scanned the pages.

First, we have the Tennessee kindergarten teacher (since suspended for one day with a letter of reprimand for her file) who encouraged her students to gather around a crying classmate to call him a pig and make oinking noises at him because he did not keep his area neat.

I can guarantee that this teacher has just damaged that child's love of learning for years to come. Little kids don't soon forget public humiliation. I have a friend who's 47 and she still remembers a humiliating experience in which a fourth grade teacher called her up to the front of the class and asked her if she was "spoiled at home."

I have another friend whose son, now nearly 21, was humiliated on purpose by a teacher way back in 2nd grade and to this day he does not care to read for pleasure. He made the mistake of reading too many books for a reading program and the teacher thought he was showing off. Nevermind that he was and is an outstanding and gifted student. She made him sit in an empty classroom with a teacher's aide while the rest of his class enjoyed a pizza party across the hall.

It's easy to humiliate little kids. They're small, virtually defenseless, and the odds are that if you do it they either won't tell or else they'll tell but no one will believe them.

Guess all the anti-bullying efforts touted nationwide don't apply to grownups.

The Tennessee teacher tasked with caring for and educating the most vulnerable members of the school population abdicated her responsibility. A one-day suspension is laughable. A lawsuit and permanent removal from the classroom would be much more appropriate.

Next!

Our next story comes from Illinois where an elementary special education teacher ordered all of her students to remove their underwear so she could determine who among them soiled their pants.

Special education students are such an easy target for intimidation, folks. Some of them can't speak, others can't hear, the rest are often physically incapacitated in some fashion so as to be unable to defend themselves. They often require extra physical care depending upon their disability, but, hey, the schools provide special education and receive additional state and federal monies for it. They know what comes with the job.

According to the news article, the teacher saw feces smeared on the floor so she had each of her seven students go into a bathroom and remove his or her underwear. The third and fourth graders were then required to present their underwear to the teacher for inspection.

No word on which, if any, of the students was the guilty culprit.
In this case, the school did the right thing and fired the teacher -- the real guilty culprit.

They already have their minds and hearts, now they want their food

The Chicago Tribune reports on a school in one of that city's districts where the principal has banned lunches from home unless a student has a medical exemption or a food allergy.

That's right. Kids are forced to eat whatever the school cafeteria doles out, whether they like it or not.

The goal is to save children from their parents' poor choices or, in some cases, from themselves.

Now, as a mom of four I'm all for saving kids from themselves. Given the choice between a wholegrain muffin and a sugary doughnut, I guarantee my children would make a run for the doughnut.

I would, too.

But this story is really about the school (the state, the government) stepping in to once again relieve parents of their parental responsibilities.

The plan, according to the news story, is backfiring.

Quote: "At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad."

At $2.25 a meal, if the child isn't receiving free breakfast and lunch, parents' hard-earned money is being thrown away. And those free breakfasts and lunches that are hitting the garbage? Yeah, that's taxpayer money being thrown away.

Never mind that the food is apparently so awful that little kids would rather go hungry during the school day than eat. Lots of learning takes place when the mind and body are hungry, right?

Please don't misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that children perform optimally when they're hyped up on soft drinks and chips. I am NOT saying public schools -- which are already doing the bulk of parenting since they have custody of students for 8 hours a day -- shouldn't encourage healthful eating.

What I am saying is that if public schools can now dictate the kinds of food parents send to school or the kinds of food students must eat, what's next? They already dictate what students wear (and given much of the obnoxious fashion that's sold to children I'm actually okay with that), they dictate what students will learn, they dictate healthcare for kids in the form of mandated vaccinations, and they dictate to an appalling degree what sort of worldview children will develop before they leave school.

Really, if food is the final frontier what's left for parents to do?

The government schools are now doing it all!

It's no coincidence that the National Education Association is in bed snug and tight with those whose political leanings would have the government do everything for us from cradle to grave.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best protector of children is rarely the government and then only in certain, select situations. Our cultures laments the inability of parents to parent even as it takes away virtually every opportunity for them to do so!

As long as parents let the government do our job for us, we should expect the government to make choices for our children that we don't like. We cannot have it both ways. Either raise our own and make educated decisions about their academics, health, and moral training, or else shut up and let the state do what it will.

Did I mention that, ultimately, we cannot have it both ways?