When people get together, the conversation often turns to work and the boss. Some supervisors resemble Fezziwig from "A Christmas Carol" while others deserve the nasty names their employees call them behind their backs.


At the age of 12, I entered the work force as a babysitter. It was a nice gig -- 50 cents an hour, free pizza and free television.

But I wanted to make real money, so I put in an application at the closest movie theater, The Robert E. Lee in north Baton Rouge. The theater promised all the free popcorn I could eat and paid a princely sum of $1.25 an hour.

This was my first time to work for someone I didn't know, and Miss Joyce remains one of the most eccentric people I've ever met. Every night, she stormed into the theater wearing leather riding boots and a full-length fur coat. She was always accompanied by two rambunctious Doberman Pinschers.

She was also bossy and demanding but she took care of her employees. If we needed the night off, she was accommodating. If a customer was rude to us, she refused to take his side. She might've looked like a character from a dime novel, but she made a huge impression on me.

Over the years, I've had a variety of bosses, especially as a temporary office worker. After all these years, one assignment remains one of the oddest places I've ever worked.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the employees wore purple to work. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they wore gold, all in honor of the LSU Tigers.

At 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., a harsh whistle sounded in the building, and everyone filed outside for a 15-minute smoking break, even if you didn't smoke.

The supervisor begged me to come back after my original assignment was over. I politely declined and got out of there as fast as I could.

As a secretary in an oil company, I worked for all kinds of men and women. Some were ruthless snakes who'd stop at nothing to get ahead while others were easy going and fair.

Probably the oddest request I ever had in my 10 year-career was when my ultra-conservative boss stuck his head out of his office door and asked me to sew up his pants because he'd ripped them while bending over.

But Dave was attentive to his employees' needs and never yelled or belittled them. And after all these years in the business world, those are two traits I look for in a good supervisor. I also look for fairness, no matter what his or her personal preferences might be.

A good boss also has a keen sense of humor and isn't afraid to laugh at him or herself when things are tough. The better bosses compliment their employees for a good job and make sure mistakes are handled so their employees grow, not wither. Great bosses do all that plus they inspire and teach through example.

Bob Haenel is one of those great bosses. Whenever I'm down, he's encourages me to keep going.

When I think I've run out of steam, he assures me I have what it takes to get the job done. Every time I've made a mistake, Bob laughingly relates his mistakes and then the matter's closed.

Bob taught me that ethics aren't pages in the Associated Press Stylebook. They're a way of life, and that's how Bob lives every day.

He honestly believes we're here to look out for "the little guy." He loves his family, his dog, his beige sweater, Arby's roast beef sandwiches and this community.

He's also taught me a thing or two in the last 15 years -- the proper way to eat a tamale, the difference between a stallion and a steer, how to cook a tender pot roast and how to creatively use profanity.

Bob knows the answer to every trivia question about "It's a Wonderful Life," the second song on the "James Gang Rides Again" album and he's the only person I know who worked in a graveyard.

Thank you, Bob, for your down-home, practical advice, your gentle guidance during turbulent and calm times and your unconditional friendship to me and hundreds others.

You're one in a million, boss. One in a million.

Bob Haenel is part of my family. He's a friend to my sons, and I don't think there's been a week gone by in the last 15 years I haven't talked to him at least once. He's one of the "good- ones" -- he loves his wife, his sons and his community. I'm glad he's my friend and mentor. This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

On our way back from Baton Rouge recently, we found ourselves getting hungry. There were dozens of signs along the interstate for fast-food joints, but my husband suggested stopping off in the historic district of Breaux Bridge, the city that bills itself as the crawfish capital of the world.


The district is small but filled with bustling antique shops and small restaurants featuring a variety of Creole and Cajun meals.

We spotted a cafe in the middle of Bridge Street, Chez Jacqueline, and when I saw the words "fried crawfish" on the menu, I was hooked. We walked through an old-screen door; and when that squeaky door slammed behind us, I felt as if we were home.

The wooden tables and chairs have seated diners for years. The condiment basket included hot sauce, a Louisiana staple, that Cajuns use to douse everything from boiled shrimp to scrambled eggs.

The walls were covered with local art as well as family photos of Jacqueline, her mother and her daughter -- all of whom worked in the restaurant.

The menu features French and Cajun dishes, not uncommon as Cajuns are descendants of exiles from the French colony of Nova Scotia who settled in the bayous of Louisiana.

Jacqueline is from France, and her roots are evident in the menu choices of Coquille St. Jacques and baked oysters smothered in butter and cheese.

Soon a woman with corn rows and a beautiful smile sat down behind a keyboard and welcomed us to Cajun Country. When Donna Angelle started playing the "Zydeco Blues," the joint came alive.

As she crooned "I was born on the bayou and there were times when I thought I couldn't last too long," the sincerity and wistfulness was evident in her mellow voice.

As we applauded, Angelle picked up an aged accordion, and she had that banged-up instrument wailing the blues in seconds. People's feet were tapping and the walls were thumping as Angelle rocked and danced.

Louisiana's Zydeco music captures people's ears, but her food bewitches the rest of the senses. On the table next to us, a plastic serving platter was piled high with mounds of hot, boiled crawfish, accompanied by a roll of paper towels and a bowl of melted butter.

As in many restaurants in small towns, diners compared notes and talked about their favorite meals. The ladies next to us were from France, and Jacqueline had prepared special dishes for them, including escargot.

Jacqueline stopped by our table and asked if I'd like to try some escargot, and I declined. She reached back over the table, ripped off a piece of French bread and dipped the bread into that buttery-rich casserole dish. She brought up one snail covered with spinach, cheese and butter.

"Baby, you will love my escargot," she said, holding the snail close to me. My mouth remained firmly closed.

"Open up," she said and I hesitated.

"Cher, I promise, you will love it. Now open up," she insisted. So, I did.

I never thought I'd eat escargot, but when that French delicacy is bathed in butter and cheese and cooked to perfection, it wasn't half bad.

As Angelle continued singing, we found ourselves swaying back and forth in our seats, thrilled to step away from life and simply relax with crispy fried crawfish tails, lively Zydeco music and the comforting feeling we'd left the modern world far, far behind.

Walking back to our car, we promised ourselves we'd come back and immerse ourselves in the down-home hospitality Cajuns know how to bestow upon anyone who's lucky enough to leave the concrete highway and step back into the land of accordions and crawfish.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Man, I'm getting old, I thought as my knees creaked and screamed at me while I was walking up a flight of stairs.


I'm no spring chicken, but my knees really don't have to announce their years of wear and tear as loudly as they were doing this past weekend.

Thinking I might have to make a doctor's appointment, I went to bed early and woke up with hardly any pain. The reason -- earlier in the week, I'd slept on a different mattress.

Now I was back in my own bed and, miracle of miracles, I was cured.

Who'd have thought a good nights' sleep could be a cure all for those aches and pains? To make things even more convenient, I now have a nearby culprit for any time things go wrong -- I slept wrong.

That's an excuse that goes back hundreds of years, probably to the cavemen.

"Honey, I couldn't bring home a mastodon today because the cave floor was lumpy and I just didn't get my beauty rest."

Inability to concentrate? Must be the inner coils in the Serta are shot.

Forgetful and restless all day? The Beautyrest has lost its charm.

It's not that researchers haven't heard the moans from the sleepy, and they've made incredible strides in mattress technology. Manufacturers now have mattresses with memory foam that remember every bend and bulge in your body and react accordingly.

These mattresses are so smart that consumers can adjust the head rest, order the perfect tension in the box springs and even set levels for two sides of the bed, tailor made for each person.

They're no longer referred to as a lowly mattress and box springs -- they're horizontal living spaces that support everything about you.

Children instinctively understand the philosophy that nothing beats sleeping in one's own bed. Most of us want to sleep in our own bed because that's our safe place. When children have to share their safe place, things can blow up rather quickly.

Growing up in a family with seven children, we all shared a room with a sibling, and I remember sharing a double bed with my sister, Diane.

Five years younger than me, we fought as all sisters do, especially ones forced to share their living space. Every single night, we followed the same script.

"Here's the line," I'd say, taking my hand and making a dent down the middle of the mattress.

"You can't cross that line because then you'd be on my side."

My sister, ever the protagonist, would wait until I was almost asleep and then slip her foot over the imaginary line.

"My foot's over the line," she'd whisper.

To which I'd kick her foot back over the line. She'd kick back and the battle raged until one of us ended up on the floor.

If we'd had a mattress with a memory, that imaginary line could've opened up automatically at 10 p.m. and then ejected the sister who crossed the line. No shoving or discussion required.

Perhaps the answer to a lot of life's frustrations and arguments can be found in getting the right mattress. Just think -- those Tempur-Pedic or King Koil mattresses might help us remember where we put the car keys or our cell phones and, in the case of fighting siblings, toss both out of the bed onto the floor to cool off.

After all, if a mattress can remember the shape of our hips and thighs, then handling the pesky details in life should be a cinch.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

My son and I were coming home one afternoon, and we saw an elderly man loading an ice chest in the parking lot. He was wearing blue and red plaid pants, a bright yellow shirt and his rather wide posterior was at the same level as his shoulders as he placed sodas in the chest.



“At what point do you lose your dignity,” said my son. “At what point do you stop caring what other people think? Look at that guy – he’s bending over from the waist and he doesn’t care what he looks like or how he looks.”


Ah, the impertinence of youth. At the age of 21, my son cannot understand how a person, say his mother, could walk out to the curb in the morning wearing a ratty bathrobe and mismatched socks. Nor can he understand how a person, say his mother again, could walk into the grocery store in broad daylight wearing shorts splotched with dried paint, no make up and water sandals.


The answer to his question is we lose our dignity because children take it away from us. We parents have had our dignity ripped out from underneath us by our darling, adorable and unpredictable children.


Many a morning I dressed the boys for church in their best clothes, only to find them undressing themselves during Mass. Afterwards, when other children were quietly eating their doughnut, my children were running around with sweat pouring down their faces, their shoes untied, their shirt tails hanging out and a red moustache from drinking five glasses of punch.


There are moments when that dignity emerges – our child makes a good grade on a test or hits a home run. But there are the other highlights of parenthood – the day your child burps the loudest in a quiet room and when they are the mischievous child in the school play who refuses to recite his or her line, steps on the feet of the child standing to them at the awards day ceremony and brags they won the contest for making the most obnoxious noise with their armpit and their hand.


Our dignity wasn’t lost – it was taken away by our children. At what point it happens is hard to say. Perhaps I lost it the day my youngest boy decided to ram the shopping cart in the end display at the grocery store and send dozens of boxes of cereal flying. Or maybe it was the afternoon one of them decided to undress completely in a department store.


I could’ve lost my dignity the time I lost track of my son and ran through the aisles of a store screaming his name at the top of my lungs. Or maybe it was when a stomach virus hit and they thought my lap was the best place to be sick.


Or maybe it was the day they decided to give each other haircuts right before a family event. My dignity could’ve vanished the day one of my sons sneezed into my hair as we were walking out the door to a party.


My dignity could’ve vanished that afternoon at the beach when my four-year-old decided to play Godzilla with the sand castle a young girl spent hours building on the beach, and her mother looked at me with a horrified expression as her daughter cried and cried.


I might’ve misplaced my dignity the day my son exclaimed to my parents he knew some new words and promptly let loose with a string of obscenities I still find difficult to repeat.


And just when I thought I’d managed to hang on to a sliver of dignity, I discover I’m wrong. I was at the stop light the other day, and I heard loud music blaring from the car on my left.


With a disgusted look, I rolled up the window and saw my teen-age son swaying to some rock and roll tune. When he honked and waved, I barely turned my head and briefly nodded, not wanting the mortified people around me to know that was my son disturbing the peace.


When we got out of the car, I told my son we parents don’t lose our dignity – we’re robbed of it. He shook his head, stopped and smiled.


“Hey, see that cup over there?” he said, pointing to a fast-food cup on the ground. “Wanna see me hit it with a spit ball?”


Like I said, we parents don’t lose our dignity – it’s taken from us by our children.


This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.