Boy, I didn’t see this coming. No way, no how.

“It is what it is.” I have heard this idiomatic phrase many times in my life. Simply put, it means that the situation at hand is a fact and it must be dealt with as it presents; there is nothing we can do about it. Just accept it.

Here are some brief takes on several local topics.

You have to get away from something for a while to appreciate it. The quote, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” dates from a poem in the 1600’s, to a line in a song by T. Haynes Bayly in 1850. Through the years, it has become a threadbare cliché.

So what can I say about the Pilot Club of Baytown’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s that I haven’t said before? Not much, really.

Sept. 17 is Constitution Day. It doesn’t have the same ring as the 4th of July, but an important date nonetheless.    

When our granddaughter was small and had questions about something, she would say, “I was a’wondering.” So, my husband and I use that phrase when we question this or that.

Pasadena is renowned for its strawberries and they have a festival every year to celebrate the tasty treats. But for a couple of years in the late 20s they played second fiddle to Highlands Farms strawberries.

As Discerning Readers know, I don’t like to write about myself personally. I haven’t done so since, well, my column last week, and the one before that, and …

The current debate over law and order reveals the stupidity of the left and the hypocrisy of the right.  

Sometimes I feel like an alien on this earth. I just don’t seem to fit in today’s world; its morals, way of living, ethics, technology, etcetera, etcetera.

Jigsaw puzzles have become the go-to family activity in the Chandler household for many years. This past Christmas our son David brought a Ravensburger Escape jigsaw puzzle in which the assembled pieces didn’t exactly match the picture on the box. That made me think about Baytown history whe…

That was close. Too close.

The funeral industry has certainly upped their game of late. Not sure if it has to do with the COVID-19 virus or that I was a recent customer when my Mom passed in April.  

Texas Democrats and the Texas GOP are waging quiet but potentially important fights over ballot eligibility and mail in balloting.

We finally got up close and personal with some gators on my great-nephew’s 8th birthday, at the Crocodile Encounter in the wilds of Angleton, about an hour’s drive from Baytown.

Our close call with Hurricane Laura last week got me thinking about other hurricanes which have visited us over the years. Before 1953 hurricanes were not given names. They were referred to by location such as the “Great Indianola Hurricane of 1875” which I wrote about last year, or maybe by…

Here’s an interesting conversation I had recently with myself personally.

The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment is upon us, and you probably noticed that a lot of our female political leaders have donned white to honor the suffragettes. 

How many times have each of us said things that we wish we could reel back in after they came out? Despite the child’s taunt, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” words can break someone’s heart and spirit. They can be forgiven, but never forgotten.  

Baytown has had a long history with aviation. You probably know about Baytown Airport on Barkaloo Road and RWJ Airport in Beach City. If you’re old enough you may even remember the airport on N. Main, but it goes back even further than that.

It took a recent trip to El Toro on Decker Drive to unclog my personal brainstem and remind me that it had been ages since I’ve done a pulsating column on my impressive frog collection. I know you’ve been aching for the latest details on my froggies.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” How appropriate these days are the opening words from, “The Tale of Two Cities,” by Charles Dickens. We live in the best country in the world, yet right now the divisiveness and disease that are splitting it apart make it seem like the worst. 

ExxonMobil posted a loss for a second consecutive quarter, an event as rare as a full solar eclipse. The company also cut back its annual capital spending by several billion dollars. 

From the very beginning there has been boatbuilding going on in Galveston Bay. The first boats made by the Karankawas were dugout canoes, using a single tree trunk with the center hewed out. They made and used these canoes all over the Galveston Bay system for hundreds of years. If you fast …

We did it. We broke down and finally bought the Robot Roomba and boy am I glad we did. I was skeptical for the first few years this Roomba came out but we finally broke down and gave in. 

I was outside absorbing the many wonders of our vast acreage here in the highly religious neighborhood along Saint Andrews Drive. Nice place. It’s home.

He could no longer feel his fingers and toes.  The cold was slowly creeping up his limbs. It was becoming unbearable. You might imagine that this man was a trekker on Mount Everest, or lost in the wilds of Alaska.  

The waves of protests across America this summer are troubling, but we are hardly in the midst of anarchy and lawlessness. 

As our family increased from man and wife to three boys and a girl in a 1200 square foot house, we needed to refigure the population. Bunkbeds were the solution. We searched for quality cherry wood, with doweled joints. Furniture worthy of being handed down to generations.