Government can’t control your quality of life

Last week I had the privilege to serve on a panel during the candidates’ forum for Stafford City Council.
Three of the four candidates were there (the fourth couldn’t attend due to a health issue). Although I have covered numerous candidate forums in my career, it was the first time I’ve been invited to be one of the questioners on a panel. It was a great experience and in the two hours I was there I learned a lot about the community and the people.
One of the issues that came up had to do with improving the quality of life. I asked the candidates what they thought made a good quality of life and how they would improve it for Stafford residents. The candidates gave some pretty stock answers about having good recreation, arts and entertainment venues, a safe and secure community in which to live, good roads, etc.
They all gave good and reasonably similar answers. It got me thinking, however, about what constitutes a good quality of life. Why stop at good? What would it take to make a good life a great one?
The quality of one’s life begins with the individual. We are all responsible for our own happiness and no one should rely on the government to provide it. Now, that being said, there are aspects of quality living that government does control. Government provides for schools, roads, community planning, police and fire protection and other communal services. Those things are all important to the quality of life within a particular community. It is the management of such things that make cities great and other cities, well, not so great.
When it comes to cities in our area, Sugar Land puts the quality in the quality of life. From things like Town Square and Constellation Field to the new theater and parks, the city has planned and built first class amenities and facilities. It has been purposeful in turning Sugar Land into a destination city rather than a bedroom community for Houston.
Stafford, from what I understand, is content to being a bedroom community and that is fine if that’s what its citizens want. There is nothing wrong with that. Cities, like people, can be whatever they want to be. If everyone and every place were the same, we’d live very boring lives. Things that appeal to some people are distasteful to others. Personally, I’m a country boy. My wife and I each grew up on small hobby farms and we enjoy open spaces and working with farm animals. City life is too constrained and noisy for us.
My younger sons, however, have only known city life and they’re comfortable being close to friends and the various attractions cities have such as shopping, dining and entertainment. The thought of having to weed a garden, feed animals and muck stalls does not appeal to them in the least bit. I had the privilege of eating food my family raised and grew ourselves. Other than some eggs, fish and a few vegetables, my kids haven’t tasted anything fresher than stuff from a grocery store.
To me, fresh food versus store-bought food is a quality of life issue. So is a quiet, rural setting versus a busy, urban environment. I think that’s probably why I don’t like the quality of life in the city where we live. We live on a busy street and I don’t find that comforting. In fact, I find it disturbing, but that’s probably just me.
Like I said earlier, the quality of one’s life is up to the individual. I may not like where I live, but I have control over that, so we’re moving this summer (and before you real estate types think about contacting me, just don’t – please!). I have a great wife and kids, a good marriage, a job that I love, hobbies I enjoy and a fantastic church that we belong to. Those are quality of life matters that keep me going every day. These are things that government cannot give nor take away.
More important to the quality of life is your attitude. You cannot control what happens to you in life but you can control how you respond to it. If you don’t like your job you can change jobs or change your attitude about your job. If you are unhappy with your spouse, don’t change spouses, find out what makes your mate happy and pursue that relentlessly. Investing in your spouse, your children and most anyone you have a relationship with not only helps you feel better but it brings a substantial return on investment. People will treat you the way you treat them.
Think about it for a minute. What types of people do you like being around? Do you like being with people who are happy and say and do nice things or people who are glum and are always in need of something? Now ask yourself which of those types of people you are. Are you the kind of person who brightens a room by walking into or out of it? Are people happy to see you coming or going? Are you quick to get angry? Do you hold grudges? Do you complain and gossip? Do you enjoy being around people like that?
Perhaps you’re quick to forgive and let things roll off your back. Maybe you have the ability to look at life from the perspective of others and can appreciate that they may be going through a difficulty you know nothing about. A smile and a kind word say more about you and your quality of life than the things you own or the nice house you live in.
One of the great things about living in a free country is the ability to control our quality of life. If government becomes an impediment to your happiness, you’ve got the ability to change your leadership or relocate. On May 6 municipal and school district voters in our area have the chance to select leaders who will impact the quality of life in your city. Take advantage of this to get to know the candidates and the issues and make the best choice you can.
I didn’t have to sit on a panel to learn these things but it did show me how well the candidates in Stafford grasp some of these concepts. Now it’s up to the voters. They can either take action, watch what happens or wonder what happened. Personally, I like being in the driver’s seat on Election Day. My vote counts. Does yours? It doesn’t if you don’t use it; so get out and vote.

Oak Ridge Boys rock the Redneck with energized show

I’m singin’ Elvira and doing my oom poppa oom poppa mow mows.
Thanks to Michael Berry, my wife and I got to see the Oak Ridge Boys Friday night at the Redneck Country Club. Oh man, did that ever take me back in time. I’ve been a fan of the Oaks since the 1970s and this was the second time I’ve gotten to see them in concert. Although I consider myself to be a big fan of theirs I admittedly haven’t listened to anything other than “Elvira” and “Bobbie Sue” in the past several years.
After all these years, even decades in some cases, I found myself singing along with old songs as if they were popular on the airwaves today. Hearing songs like “Dream On,” “Sail Away,” “Y’all Come Back Saloon” and “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” turned me into a teenager once again as part of the soundtrack of my youth played out live on stage from the mouths of septuagenarians.
Don’t let their age fool you. These guys have still got it. Joe Bonsall, Duane Allen, William Lee Golden and Richard Sterban may be long in the tooth but they are full of energy and their smooth harmonies haven’t skipped a beat or soured a single note.
Throughout the 1970s I listened almost exclusively to country western music. You can’t do that and not be a fan of the Oak Ridge Boys. Their Greatest Hits album (which, ironically, came out before they made their greatest hits) was one of the first albums I ever owned. I had it on cassette and nearly wore it out because I listened to it so much. Sadly, someone stole it from me the same summer that I got to see them for the first time in concert.
I was working on camp staff at the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch in Red Feather Lakes, Colo., when we got word that the Oak Ridge Boys would be performing a couple hours away at Cheyenne Frontier Days. It must have been about 1982 or ’83. It was a weekend show and my buddies and I wanted to see them. We went up and stayed with a friend from camp who lived there.
We spent the day at Cheyenne Frontier Days taking in all the sights and sounds. Buying a concert ticket on a camp staff budget wasn’t going to happen, so we thought we would stroll around and listen from outside the rodeo arena. As the show started, we happened across a gate that was unchained and hanging open. With quick glances and not saying a word, we slipped inside and found seats high up in the bleachers.
It was one of the most spectacular concerts I’ve ever seen and to this day is one of the most memorable. I don’t know what made it more memorable, the show itself or the adrenaline rush of having sneaked in. Either way, it was one of those youthful indiscretions that I have never forgotten.
“Elvira” and “Bobbie Sue” were still getting ample airtime on the radio and the Oak Ridge Boys just nailed them both that night in Cheyenne. I was totally captivated by the energy and passion the quartet showed on stage.
Fast-forward about 30-some years and little has changed in that regard. That came as a complete and pleasant surprise to me. About a month ago I had just hung up the phone from an interview with B.J. Thomas (who is coming to the Stafford Centre on May 4) when a publicist called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to do an interview with the Oak Ridge Boys.
As much as I didn’t want to give free publicity to a venue that doesn’t advertise with our paper, there was no way on earth I was going to turn down the opportunity to interview one of my childhood favorites. A couple weeks later I had Richard Sterban (the one with the really deep voice) on the phone. Initially, I wasn’t impressed. He sounded old. Having just recently been disappointed in Willie Nelson’s concert at Rodeo Houston, I thought I was going to be in for another letdown.
During the conversation, Sterban slipped into “interview mode” and rambled on, hitting all the usual points of an artist interview. I didn’t even have to ask many questions.
Then the power blinked and the call was disconnected.
As we struggled to get everything back up again, he called back and left a message with me at the same time I was trying to call him back. He was determined to make sure we finished the interview. That changed my opinion in a heartbeat. He could have just let it go, but he showed the decency and integrity to follow through with it.
The publicist, Sanford “Sandy” Brokaw, said the club’s owner, Michael Berry, liked the story I wrote so much that he agreed to leave me a pair of tickets. When my wife and I got to the door, the tickets weren’t there and our names were not on the list. No worries, Berry’s people cleared things up and we got in.
Now at this point I need to stop and give a shout-out to Michael Berry and the Redneck Country Club. I rarely drink and I’m no fan of bars. This place, however, was different. It was clean and well managed. The décor was tastefully tacky. The staff and patrons were all very friendly and accommodating. As a photojournalist for the last 36 years, I’ve learned to get a little pushy to get the shots I need. I fell into that mode as I tried to see through the crowds to get clear shots of the stage. To my surprise, people stepped aside and invited me to move up to get pictures. I never in my life would have thought that would happen in a crowded bar.
What really made a lasting impression, however, was when Berry came on stage to introduce the Oak Ridge Boys. He made a point to honor the military veterans in attendance as well as make sure everyone understood that wives are respected there.
“This is a place to bring a date, not find one,” he said.
That is classy. Really classy. I don’t know Michael Berry, but my respect for him is sky high.
As the concert was ending, I came to the realization that I’ve now seen the Oak Ridge Boys twice and have never bought a ticket. I think I might owe them for that. Fortunately they are coming back in October to do a charity concert at the Redneck Country Club. I think I’ll just have to buy tickets to that show. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of time to work on my oom poppa oom poppa mow mows.

There’s much more to church than just Easter and Christmas

It’s that time of year again when the twice-a-year crowd goes to church.
Easter is this Sunday. This is Holy Week, the time between Palm Sunday – marking Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem — and his resurrection. The other half of the time the “twicers” go to church they get to learn about the virgin birth of Jesus. It really is a shame that the only lessons this crowd receives are those of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. Granted, they are important elements to Christianity, but the meat and taters of his ministry gets left out.
This is also a very trying time for pastors and ministry staff, as they typically get two at-bats a year with crowds like this and they need to hit it out of the ballpark each time. While they are busy preparing a dynamic service, they are often caught up in the labors of the seasons, dealing with extra services, decorations, children’s programs and all the other stuff that whittles at their time and attention.
If you don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, you ought to be at a pastor’s house the mornings after Easter and Christmas. I’m no pastor, but I’m related to some and close friends with others. Although they won’t admit it publicly, Christmas and Easter are exhausting. The ones that are fortunate enough to welcome new converts to the faith at these times will now have their work cut out for them. Bringing someone into a relationship with Jesus Christ is a first, big step. Integrating them and their families into their community of believers can require a lot of careful planning and plenty of behind-the-scenes work that few are aware of.
It really isn’t a burden for pastors, ministers and priests because this is what they live for. This is their passion and their goal – to bring others to Christ. While this generally happens on a regular basis throughout the year, the numbers and the challenge get bigger at Christmas and Easter. Many pastors and their staff are caught between trying follow-up and reach out to first time and occasional visitors and wanting and needing to nurture relationships with those new to the faith. This balancing act can be stressful and unnerving but also incredibly rewarding.
Those who go to church for Easter Sunday, whether a first-time visitor, twicer or regular attendee, please take a moment to thank the pastor and his staff for the hard work they do. A little appreciation and go an incredibly long way, especially for people who typically get a lot of criticism and/or neglect from the people they serve.
Actually, I may have painted a much more bleak picture of what the holidays are really like for men and women of the cloth, but you get the idea. Any church or other religious service requires a lot of planning and preparation that most people don’t see. I’ve had glimpses of this over the years because of my family and friend connections and also my volunteer work at church.
Volunteering at church is incredibly rewarding. This Saturday my church, First Colony Church of Christ, is holding its annual Big Bunny Party from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with a time for special needs children and their families from 10-11 a.m. I think the volunteers have as much or more fun than the guests do, and the little visitors have a ball! I know for a fact that the Big Bunny really gets excited to see all the happy (hoppy?) faces.
For the last year and a half my family has been attending First Colony Church’s new satellite campus in Richmond at the former Wild West venue on FM 359. We literally meet in a barn. Called Christ’s Church at Foster Creek, we hold services Sundays at 10 a.m. My family is fully integrated, as we head up communion preparations and clean up, help with the coffee service and my son Luke operates the lights. My wife Sandy helps out in the children’s area and I am usually with the middle and high school students on Sunday nights for Sunday Night at the Barn.
Our youth pastor, Dale Akers, usually has some wacky (and messy) games to play on Sunday nights. He usually has snacks and drinks for the kids (assuming the food wasn’t obliterated as part of a game), songs to sing, a short message and a time of sharing and hanging out together. It’s been very rewarding to see the spiritual growth and maturity of these kids in the short time we’ve been meeting.
It’s during these times of regular Sunday services and the youth activities that we see the meat and taters of Jesus’ ministry both taught and put to action. There is no such thing as a perfect church and ours is a fine example of that. We all have our flaws and imperfections, but we’re also gifted with a spirit of love, forgiveness, grace and acceptance.
So, if you limit yourself to visiting twice a year or just being a Sunday morning consumer, I would invite you to visit your local church and then get involved. I’m reminded of something pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California once said at an event I was covering years ago in Amarillo. He compared ministry to a football game. He said there are 22 players on the field in need of a break and 70,000 spectators in the stands in desperate need of exercise.
Don’t be afraid to get in the game. Kickoff is this Sunday. Happy Easter, y’all!

Have honor, decency and integrity suffered death by memes?

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay our final respects to honor, decency and integrity in American culture.
These moral imperatives have been ill for a long time, reaching a rapid decline during what has become known as the Presidential Campaign of 2016 and finally succumbing with the Trump Inauguration. The candidates and their campaigns were merely symptoms of a more widespread and deadly epidemic.
Although morality has been debated as long as man has been able to throw words with the cold-hearted bluntness of well-aimed stones, there has always been a sense of decorum and lines that simply were not crossed. It has been widely known, understood and accepted that there were certain things one did not say or do in public. You didn’t lie, you didn’t swear and you respected the opinions of others.
My challenge to you would be to go to your favorite social media site (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or whatever) and without scrolling more than one swipe see if you can get through every posting without finding a single swear word, lie or insult. I just now tried it on my Facebook page and the first thing I saw was a humorous jab at vegetarians (insult).
I’m going to pick on Facebook here because it is the largest and most influential social media site and also the one I know best. I currently have about 750 friends on Facebook. During the presidential campaign last year I bet I blocked at least a third of them from my feed. It had absolutely nothing to do with their politics or their candidate of choice. It had everything to do with their character.
The number one reason I block anyone from my Facebook feed is for vulgarity. If you cannot converse without using swear words, then I probably don’t want to have a conversation with you. That doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that I think I’m too good for you. It means I have better things to do and fill my mind with than your garbage.
The garbage doesn’t stop with vulgarities. The second reason I blocked people during the campaign was for blatant meanness and lies. They generally manifested themselves in political memes. If people got in the habit of sharing hateful things, I blocked them. I really don’t want or need that kind of negativity in my life.
The third reason I blocked friends on Facebook was for indecency. If someone consistently posted or shared things of a sexual nature, I blocked the poster and often reported the content. If that makes me prude, so be it. I’m a firm believer that anything of a sexual nature should be kept between a husband and wife. I’m also raising teenage boys and I certainly don’t want them to think I condone the objectification of women because of what they see on my computer.
Getting back to my original point, I honestly feel that society has pushed the free speech envelope so far to the extreme that a tidal wave of consequences is about to wash over us. We still have libel and slander laws in this land and it’s only a matter of time before someone has the backbone to use them. Whether anyone does or not, continuing on the course we are on will only set us up for unbridled anarchy where anyone says and does whatever they want because there are no consequences.
It is not only online but in real life as well. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself why Sugar Land finally passed an ordinance banning drivers from using cell phones and other handheld devices. People don’t think laws apply to them or that their actions have an impact on others.
Just this weekend I took my wife to see a movie. Despite numerous messages asking patrons to silence their cell phones, the person sitting next to me and nearly everyone else down the row frequently checked their cell phones. When I finally asked the person next to me to shut it off, she gave me a terse reply about needing to make sure her kid was OK. I’m sorry, but if you can’t leave your kid for two hours then you probably don’t need to be in a theater interrupting everyone else. Maybe you should be with your kid.
Sorry, I got sidetracked, but it makes my point. People have become incredibly self-centered and it shows by how they behave in public and by what they post online. Socially, our moral imperatives are suffering death by meme. (For those who don’t know what a meme is, it is basically a picture or video with a message printed on it.) Most are meant to be funny but increasingly they are hurtful and derogatory. During the presidential campaign they became violently cruel.
I couldn’t tell you if the rhetoric has died down or not, because I have blocked so much of it from my social media feeds. At least for me Facebook is slowly becoming more social in a friendly way. At the rate things are going, I may reach the end of this battle with few friends on Facebook, but at least I will know they are true friends. And none of us will be attending the funeral for honor, decency and integrity because we will have kept the faith and stayed strong against the overwhelming adversity of a culture that would rather play dirty than stay clean.