Trudging Along Through Life

My bride and I have been mightily distracted this week, and that has been helpful. We have the same employer and trust me when I say it has been an intense week at the old salt mine. Company policies explicitly prohibit us from saying anything about the job in a forum such as this, so let me carefully pass along one piece of information. There's this Really Big Thing that my wife is mostly the boss of, and she's has a really good week. How's that?

Rarely do our work duties intersect, but for this week I've been on her team. So, assuming the work week wraps up the way I hope it will, there is reason for relief and celebration. For me, it's on two fronts: professionally and personally. Let's just say that a huge amount of pressure is about to be lifted off her shoulders.

So, there has been precious little time or energy to devote to worrying about our daughter, the college freshman. Neither has their been time to worry about ourselves and how much we miss her.

We finally received a photo of her pledge class, so at least we know what the Baby Zetas look like.



I know that our daughter went to a Christian-oriented social event last night, and she advised us by text message that it was "Awesome." I read somewhere on Facebook that she's going to an 80's party tonight. I have no idea if it's sorority-related or not. She is also expressing tremendous enthusiasm for Campus Crusades. So, overall, her first couple of weeks of college have been exceedingly positive.

We are still adjusting to her absence. My wife was intensely emotional over the most recent weekend. I kind of lost my composure last night. When she was a baby, there was a song I made up for her and would sing to her as she went to sleep. I texted the words of the song to her right before I went to bed. She wrote back, "Thanks Daddy." I was done.

Somebody get me a Kleenex. I gotta go.....

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Trapped in a Glass Box of Emotion

Classes have begun for our freshman at TCU, and in a late-night phone call after Day One of School, she seemed pleased. The emotion and drama of rush week is behind us, and she has a bid to ZTA tucked safely into her resume. What a minefield that process has been. She’s still treading carefully around the periphery, trying to figure out what membership in a sorority is all about.

After a late Sunday night-into-Monday-morning social foray, she assessed her “first night out at college” as "A++++++++."
Of course, my reaction was “what about school?” She admitted that she started classes on very little sleep, but said a mid-morning power nap really helped.

Meanwhile, back at home….things are not going well. My wife just didn’t make it through sorority stress. It’s one of those things Darrell Just Doesn’t Understand. I’m sure the disquieting emotional displays at my house were the manifestation of an accumulation of factors, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to witness. I actually share a feeling of helplessness with my wife. Our daughter is making huge decisions and we are not around to help. Even a gesture as simple as a supportive hug is simply out of reach for us.

Anticipating how empty the house would feel, I overscheduled myself during the week. I took three freelance TV assignments which ate up a few evenings.

I also hosted a program at a local church paying tribute to 100 years of Broadway. This required rehearsals and of course a performance. That was fun. I enjoyed the music and spending time with creative, arts-minded people. I guess you could postulate that under stress I defaulted to my media/ arts roots, and I would be hard pressed to deny it.

Oh, but the weekend was the worst. We had some social engagements lined up and we went through the motions; but we were so distracted we could hardly enjoy ourselves. My wife was worked up about our daughter and I was worked up about my wife being worked up. It was pitiful, truly I tell you.

On Sunday evening, we were so restless that we actually just went driving. We jumped in the car, opened the sun roof and drove toward a distant thunderstorm to watch the impressive lightning display.

Now that school has actually started in Ft. Worth, we can hope that our Freshie Frog quickly establishes a routine and finds some social equilibrium. Until then, it seems our day-to-day existence will continue to be alarmingly off-balance.

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A Rush of Adrenaline in Ft. Worth

Less than a week into our daughter’s college experience, she’s already reporting tremendous fun, a loss of her voice and a satisfying kind of fatigue. She’s been going through sorority rush, which has kept her extraordinarily busy and has severely limited either her ability or her willingness to communicate with her parents.

In late-night phone calls, she reports that the rush process seems to be going well for her. There are several sets of young women she seems to like very much. I don’t know a lot about it, but I’m told the process is so intense because everyone involved wants to make good decisions about the group of people with whom they will be closely identified potentially for the rest of their lives. Okay, that makes sense.
My wife is on the edge of her seat as evenings wear on, awaiting word on the day’s activities. A friend of hers whose daughter is at LSU is so distracted and anxious about her daughter’s rush in Baton Rouge that she can barely concentrate on work. Me? I’m grateful the gravity of all this is lost on me. I listen in with great interest, and then just tell my daughter I love her. She’ll have friends. That’s the kind of person she is. The significance of the label she might wear is lost on me.
We are getting text messages from people in far-flung outposts who want to know how rush is going. All of them are sorority women, of course. One close friend who lives in Texas is pulling for a particular sorority to nab our daughter so she can go to her initiation.
Soon enough, we will know and hopefully there will be cause for celebration throughout the land.
There’s an alarming lack of photos being produced, and so we still are reliant on Twitter and text messages to have any sense of what’s happening. Reading between the lines from 1:00 a.m. microblogs, we can assume that some pranksters rousted freshman girls from their beauty sleep overnight.
I guess somebody set off a fire alarm just in time for the dorm to be evacuated as the lawn sprinklers came on.
Don’t you know she’s having fun? There will be great stories to tell, and this is just the start. Speaking of starting, when do classes begin? Oh, that’s next week! We’ll see how much fun that is, won’t we?

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A Sweaty Start to College Life

On this, our daughter’s first full day away from home, we are quickly learning to monitor her activities from afar. That’s the magic of text messages, Facebook and Twitter. We realize we only will see what she wants us to see, but so far everything’s positive.
From those short dispatches, we can determine that she has said good-bye to home, hello to her new sleeping arrangements and presumably had pizza at Mellow Mushroom.
She evidently went to church and then went shopping and is loving college so far, and that’s just in the first 24 hours since she said good-bye to her parents.
The journey from home to dorm was arduous and steamy.

Two SUV’s were packed with her essentials, and off we went, only to be delayed for almost an hour on the interstate. Along with thousands of other motorists, somewhere in East Texas we were at dead stop while an accident was cleared. We became philosophical while we waited, deciding it’s better to be delayed by a wreck than to actually be involved in it.
We arrived at TCU in the hottest part of the August afternoon, and in the company of many similar families became supersaturated with our own sweat as we hauled everything into her room while battling triple-digit temperatures.


Her roommate’s father was there and welcomed us to Texas, making a comment about the heat. I said, “Hey, we’re from Louisiana. This is nothing. Come visit us. We’ll match your heat and raise you 20-30 points of humidity.” I’m not sure he believed me.
We piled everything into the room and arranged the furniture for the young ladies.

Getting the beds assembled and made up quite quickly became the highest priority. I’m not sure why, exactly; but by the time we got to that point, the other father had hit the road. As the only male in close quarters, I knew enough to simply follow instructions. My wife snapped a photo of the bed and e-mailed it to her mother. Why my sweet mother-in-law needed an on-the-spot report with photos about the bed just escapes me…but, hey, you know what I’m saying here?


After that, suitcases were unpacked and empty boxes were taken to a trash pile and suddenly there was nothing left for Dad to do. As if by magic, Frog Camp friends showed up on cue and it became abundantly obvious it was time for the parents to hit the highway. As I hugged my daughter good-bye, the preppy kid I had met moments before asked, “Isn’t there supposed to be crying right now?” I thought, “Keep your topsiders on, Biff,” but I just smiled and said, “Don’t worry. There will be.”
That prediction came true, but the ride home wasn’t as emotional as I had expected. For the moment, it feels like she’s just gone to camp or something. So, check with me in a couple of weeks.
I’m hoping the adjustment will be easier if we are convinced she’s happy. We’re willing to believe it as long as she keeps posting happy thoughts.

We are keeping an eye on her from a distance, but everybody knows she’s less than four hours away by car. I’m positive about that, too.

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Long, Lingering Hugs and Torrents of Tears

A steady stream of well-wishers has filtered through the family home on this, the last day before our daughter leaves for college. There have been tearful farewells with friends, as well as a nice dinner with the grandparents. At the end of the evening, a smile could not hide the puffy eyes.


Her brother has set a personal record for hanging around the house, saying repeatedly, “this is just so weird. I can’t really grasp that she’s leaving.”
Well, get a grip, because she is.

I’ve been saying for more than a year that this would be terrible for me, and that has turned out to be accurate. I’m convinced that I’m better than I might have been if I had not spread the misery out over all this time. My wife, a “live in the moment” kind of person, is just plain weepy. My sweet mother-in-law left the house in tears.
The college girl is ready to go. She was awake until 2:00 a.m. talking on webcams with some of her buddies who have already moved to campus. It’s the process of saying good-bye that has taken its toll.


There was a long lunch earlier in the day with a group of girls, some lingering hugs and rivers of tears.
The Girl Across the Street, who is the closest thing our daughter has to a sister, has been hanging around, squeezing a few more moments of togetherness into the final few hours.


Sure, she’ll be home for holidays and summers, but it’s a safe bet that after tonight, things around here will never again be quite the same.

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Everything Must Go!

The day of our daughter’s departure is drawing dreadfully near. She is making final preparations for her relocation to TCU, where presumably she will spend the majority of her time over the next four years. Boxes bound for the dorm room are starting to pile up.


How she expects to cram all that stuff, along with herself and her roommate and her roommate’s stuff into one standard-issue dormitory dwelling space is beyond me.
All the essentials are lined up: A television, a coffee maker, a fan, a printer, a lamp…
In a separate location, occupying approximately a third of an acre of floor space, are the shoes she intends to take along.


Elsewhere, there are shelves filled with DVD movies which she fully intends to take with her. There’s a plan for the DVD’s. She will have a dry erase board in the room, which will serve as a check-out system.

Yep, anybody who borrows one of her movies will be on the honor system; but must make a note that they have acquired the DVD. I’m sure that will work out just fine and she will maintain possession of every last disc.
Truly, she seems surreally excited about all this. That makes me happy, of course; but I’m not so sure how much it’s diminishing the size of the knot in my stomach.


Not only is my spectacular daughter leaving me, but she’s going to an expensive out-of-state private university. All this is daunting and I dare say depressing. My wife says I’ve been cranky for two weeks, but she understands why and doesn’t blame me. Well, here’s a news flash: she hasn’t been her usual Little Suzie Sunshine self for quite a while. That’s okay. I understand why and I don’t blame her.
Mindful of TCU’s mascot, I guess it’s safe to say my princess has turned into a Frog.

She had better become a stellar student somewhere along the way so all of this worry and expense can be justified.
Take a look at the pile of stuff we’re expected to haul west this weekend. Do you see one thing that’s academically oriented? Hey, for her the party’s just getting started. Maybe that’s a philosophy her mother and I should adopt back here at the lonesome homestead. That wouldn’t be so dreadful, would it?

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Sweating in the Sky

When I woke up this morning, I had no idea I would spend part of my day flying across the city in a helicopter. It’s simply not part of my routine. Dressed in a business suit on a 102 degree day, the thought of intentionally moving closer to the sun seemed insane. A photo assignment was thrust upon me and the best way to achieve my objective was from the air, so I had to roll with the rotors.
Fortunately, despite being consistently needled by my wife about it, I almost always have a variety of clothes in the back of my car. While, sadly, I had no shorts; I did have a white polo-style shirt and a couple of ball caps. So, I changed clothes as best I could and at least I was somewhat comfortable from the waist up.

I received a thorough and thoughtful pre-flight briefing from the pilot, who had no idea if I had any helicopter-riding experience. Fortunately, my salad days as a local TV sportscaster served me well. Many a fall Friday was spent hopping from small town to small town, football stadium to football stadium, in a copter much smaller than today’s ride. So, there wasn’t a moment of trepidation during the flight. In fact, it was kind of a thrill. I wish I hadn’t had to concentrate so much on shooting photos so I could soak in the experience. Then again, if not for the job at hand, I wouldn’t have been flying at all.

We were airborne for an hour or so and the photos turned out kind of nice, so the morning was a success. I need to reserve the images for their intended purpose, but I did squeeze off a few for fun along the way. So, here you go: Beautiful Downtown Shreveport on a blistering August morning.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

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Filled With the Spirit of New Life

(Austin, TX) - Our infant nephew has found his running legs and was using them to his advantage most of the morning. That is, until he was corralled by his mommy’s loving arms and brought into the embrace of baptism on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Seriously, he was running laps in the church, even while our old friend The Priest spent some time with the family reinforcing the meaning of baptism. In a moving prologue to the sacrament itself, Father reminded us that it is scientifically proven that there is a finite amount of water on Earth and that it has never changed. It is water that unites us with one another as well as with history. Water flows, evaporates, freezes, precipitates, but always recycles. With water, we are cleansed.

Hey, it got my attention, but not the nephew’s.
Up the aisle, down the aisle, through the pews he scampered with his older sister giving constant chase. It impacted the reverence of the proceedings ever so slightly. That’s okay; it was his day. While the deeper meaning was clearly not on his one-year-old mind, he somehow realized he was the center of attention.
When it came time for the business of baptism, there was an amazing transformation. The boy became quite still and quiet. There was an appropriate solemnity to the moment.

The not-so-churched in the crowd expressed amazement at the turn of events. I invoked the Holy Spirit. Bottom line, there is a new Christian among us and that’s something to celebrate. We all vowed to do everything in our power to support this young man as he grows in Christ.

Foremost among those making the promise was my son, his cousin, who had bestowed upon him the honor of being the boy’s Godfather. Even though he has fallen away from the Church, my son seemed to take the responsibility seriously. I wasn’t listening carefully, but I’m pretty sure he fully participated in the baptism, giving all the appropriate responses proscribed by the prayer book.
I know his mama was proud to have him in church again, even if it was a one-shot special occasion on a Saturday. Maybe it was a baby step toward some kind of spiritual reconciliation. As we found out first-hand, baby steps in a church can evolve into running in the blink of an eye.

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Feeling Froggier by the Day

Our daughter has made it home safely from Colorado, battered and bruised but pleased as punch. Her week-long “Frog Camp” experience left her exhilarated and exhausted. I’m not sure what she was most eager to talk about. Whitewater rafting was high on the list.
The scrapes and bruises came from rock climbing.
It was a physical week, to be sure. There were zip lines, ropes courses and other team building exercises. The idea was to meet fellow incoming TCU freshmen and form fast friendships before school starts. Based on the smiles we see in the photos, things seem to have worked out.
This was an experience focused on the freshmen who did not know one another before Frog Camp, Now they know one another well. Naively, I did not even think about the gender mix when she signed up for this. Somehow, seeing photos my daughter posing with a bunch of guys I haven't met caused me to raise my eyebrows a little.
There were TCU faculty members there, as well as some upperclassmen and they hit it off well. Or, as our daughter put it, “It was awesome!! I met the coolest people.”
So, mission accomplished, I suppose. That late-summer trepidation she has been feeling seems to have been washed away by the healing waters of the roaring rapids, with the help of a few camp fires and smores.
Now, she can hardly wait to start school. I guess this trip was good preparation for her parents, too. We need to learn to love hearing her stories from far away.

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Opera, Show Tunes and Tears

(Austin, TX) – I am spending the weekend embedded among the in-laws, fraught with family festivities. Our absurdly talented niece, soon bound for college on a performing arts scholarship, put together a farewell recital that thrilled those assembled in the worship space of her home church.
She artfully blended classical offerings from the likes of Mozart, Faure and Schubert with Broadway tunes from shows such as “Phantom of the Opera” and “Wicked.”
Her rendition of “Ave Maria” was emotional. (To watch it, click here).

Her staunchly Episopalian grandmother, who doubles as my sweet mother-in-law, was riveted, even to the decidely non-Episcopalian tribute to the Virgin Mother. Moreover, she was caught up in what the whole evening meant. It was billed as a “good-bye recital,” meaning our niece is saying so long to high school and home, as well as childhood. It can make a grandma misty.


It was a moving evening, to be sure. The performance was brave and daring on its own merits. Given the context of it, I’m kind of amazed and impressed that she made it through without even a little breakdown.
She said she was trying her best to surrender to the music and not think about the technicalities or the ramifications of the recital. That says something about her growth as an artist.
Once she makes the leap to college life, she will be on her way. I suspect we’ll be hearing great things from her in short order. I know her mother, her aunt and her grandmother will continue to beam with pride along the way.
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Here's a little something from Mozart's Don Giovanni:

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Gabriel Faure:

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To close, fittingly, "For Good," from Wicked:

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Go Back to the Woods

My wife and I crossed paths with our son's boss and he told us he had given the guy a day off so he could go on a camping trip. I knew there was a trip, but camping? It was a four-day weekend trek to the woodlands of southeastern Oklahoma. That's about all I knew until the photos of the "camp" emerged.

That's my boy, 'cause that's my kind of camping.
Heck, yeah. That's what I'm talking about.


Ever the man of mystery, my son runs with a crew I've never met. The pictures I've seen, combined with the stories I hear, paint a picture of a nice group of folks. There is a family central to the proceedings. They share a love of music, garage band-related activities and a taste for high-end lodging, even in the woods. This merry band of modern minstrels has apparently accepted him into the collective, showing great generosity along the way. What I'm saying here is I don't think he had to pay to stay and this is not the first time something like this has come along. The man in the photo, whose name I do not know, has obviously taken a shine to my kid.



I'm not complaining. He's an adult and he certainly can have friends. I mean, how terrible would it be if he didn't? These folks are exposing him to new things, and that's positive. They're keeping him entertained and well fed.

If we can add "grooming" to the package, then I really will be grateful.


Somewhere in the middle with respect to the hair would make me happy.
Okay, whatever makes him happy is much more important at this stage of the game; and from what I can see he's keeping good company these days.


I might not know his friends, but I do know the guy who signs his paycheck. I won't reveal the dark "camping" secret, I promise. Sometimes an air of mystery can work to a guy's advantage.

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There She Goes Again

Time is starting to compress on the family as move-in day for our daughter at Texas Christian University draws near. She made her college decision early and has exuded calm confidence about it from the start. Now, reality seems to be setting in. She and her friends have been comparing schedules and have come to the sobering realization that the actual number of days they have to spend together is alarmingly small. She has been closely-knit with many girls since middle school, and the inevitable unraveling of that long-established support system has become unsettling.
The days are diminished by their late-summer travel schedules. My daughter boarded a flight this morning to participate in an official TCU function dubbed “Frog Camp.”
She’s traveling alone to Colorado for an “Alpine” experience with more than a dozen people she does not know. That’s the idea: twelve incoming freshmen, a couple of upperclassmen and a faculty member spend several days together in intense togetherness. The plan is to create a support group before you arrive on campus. It seems like a great idea, and we are told the program has a long history of achieving its goals.
She had many Frog Camp options and chose Colorado for reasons of her own. I suspect a chance to escape the heat had something to do with it. As her mother drove her to the airport, she felt confident about the camp but a little nervous about close connections. The double meaning there is quite intentional. What will she do in the Colorado wilderness if her bag doesn’t make the transition from one plane to another? What kind of people will she meet when she arrives? How will this week affect the course of her life? Perhaps profoundly, maybe not at all.
She certainly will know more about herself when she gets home. The thing is, she will only be home for a couple of weeks before she’s off again, this time for a fresh start in a whole new world. Hopefully there, time will begin to expand for her once again.

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Brushes With Celebrity, Gaga Style

My daughter is safely home from what proved to be a star-studded trip to Dallas-Ft. Worth, the centerpiece of which was a concert by the white-hot singer/ songwriter/ performance artist who calls herself Lady Gaga. (Concert photo by Shawn P. Cox)

The show lived up to her expectations, and the hours leading up to it exceeded them in a way that could not have been foreseen. She and one of her friends, an early Gaga devotee, designed and wore Lady Gaga costumes to the show, which is part of the "Moster Ball" tour.
The "Little Monsters," as the entertainer calls her fans, reacted with amazement and amusement to the costumes. She said from the moment they stepped out of the car, they couldn't take ten steps without groups of people asking to have photos made with them.

At one time, she tells us, there was a line of at least twenty people or groups waiting to pose for photos with them. Among them, one of the stars of the MTV show "My Life as Liz," Taylor Terry. (This is billed as a reality show, but my cursory research into it indicates that there's not much reality involved. Still, it's a real show on a popular cable network).
Some of her friends kept a loose count of the number of times they were stopped for photos. They lost track somewhere north of 300. She said, "I felt so free and confident. I was wearing a wig and big sunglasses. Nobody knew who we were. We just stood there and posed for pictures. For about four hours, I felt like a celebrity."

That's saying something, considering what happened earlier in the day. Do you know about The Jonas Brothers?
They're a pop music band who rose to fame on The Disney Channel. They have a squeaky-clean image and some young female fans swoon over them. As my daughter was shopping in the Galleria, she stepped out of a dressing room and saw Kevin Jonas.

That's Mrs. Jonas graciously posing with him for the photo, alongside the Gaga girls (pre-costume).
Twenty-four hours after all the excitement, my daughter is still feeling the thrill. For the first time in her young life, she was on the road on her own. With three friends in tow, they did Dallas-Ft. Worth up right, living a young woman's adventure with an ever-expanding zest for life. Late in the evening, she summed it up by offering "today quite possibly has been the best day of my life."
There are many more days to come. With the start of college just three weeks away, her star is on the rise.

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