Tag: family

Silent role models; just doing without saying

Sunday is Father’s Day.

Previous pieces occupying this space have waxed eloquent on Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, more often when my parents were still living. Partially because I knew they both read Number One Son’s column faithfully. Which saved me from struggling to get a card in the mail on time.

Something at which I never excelled for any occasion.

Dad’s earthly journey ended in 2007, and Mom followed him in 2010. Thinking about role models on Father’s Day, my parents were the pinnacle of examples I held in highest esteem. Simply living by their own goals and standards, just being silent role models for my sisters and me, instead of talking about it.

How that usually plays out didn’t sink in on me, however, until years later. Growing older before fully realizing just who our heroes and role models were, and why. Sort of like hindsight. You know, turning on the porch light after we’ve already stumbled up the steps.

My first role model and hero was always my dad. He worked hard all his life, demonstrating how to love and care for a family, run a business, and treat others with kindness and courtesy. Every day since, I’ve thought about how he faced difficult decisions. Asking myself at times, “How would he have handled what I’m facing now?”

Alongside Dad, Mom added her own lessons by example. Watching her, I learned about silent stability, taking care of the home front, and the grounding effect of enjoying a mid-morning coffee break. Most importantly, however, I learned from her the strength of an unyielding faith in God to get through the challenges in life whenever fastballs fly without warning, and to be thankful when they aren’t.

Beyond my parents, I was blessed with other role models—some were sort of “alternate moms” who helped shape me in ways I likewise did not fully understand until later in life.

“Granny”—Dad’s mother—was unbelievably stern in matters of honesty, hard work, and frugality, but she was equally soft in the areas of love and patience. She never hesitated to claim “helping raise” any youngster she spent more than a couple of hours with. And somehow, a couple of hours’ worth of her wisdom and philosophy stayed with you like the smell of her homemade biscuits in the morning.

“Alternate Moms” also influencing me were two of my best friends’ mothers. David Neeley, Oscar Elliott, and I were always into something together while growing up in Northeast Texas. So much so that we also often shared moms.

Oscar’s “Momma,” Bobbie Jean Elliott, was a small, quiet woman with an easygoing but strong influence on neighborhood kids who passed through her house. We all knew what she expected of us. And she also let us know what she wouldn’t stand for with just one of her looks and a few words—economical but effective—and always served with a smile.

David’s mother, Doris Neeley, had roots in “Old North Dallas,” back when most of Big D was inside Loop 12, and the White Rock Lake area was the nicest place to live. An invitation to join her and David for a Saturday trip to Dallas was a unique treat, whether for shopping at NorthPark or for a taste of culture at Fair Park Music Hall.

She was refined, elegant, and just classy enough to laugh when I ordered a hamburger with catsup in a five-star North Dallas restaurant.

My silent role models… all gone now. I sometimes wonder if they knew they were leaving their fingerprints on the wet cement of my young life? I sure didn’t.

I doubt they did either, really. I suspect they were like all silent role models, just doing without saying a word. Silently handing down family recipes for a rewarding life written in good examples rather than with fading ink.

I know it’s Father’s Day, but I tend to celebrate my silent role models of all types these days: fathers, mothers, and more, on every occasion I can.  

Wishing they could read my “cheap card columns” about how much I miss and appreciate them all.

—Leon Aldridge

• (Photo at top) Three generations of Aldridge men in a painting my daughter, Robin Osteen did from an old black-and-white photo and presented me with about ten years ago … I think it was. Left, my grandfather Sylvester Aldridge (1888-1967), right, my father, Leon Aldridge (1923-2007), center, yours truly. Date of that photo (judging from my youthful appearance) would have been late 1949 to early 1950.

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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’

How do you define ‘small problem’

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish poet, playwright, and writer.

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“Dad,” daughter Robin asked one evening while staring down her homework. “What does facetious mean?”

I paused—a rare teaching moment! “It’s when you make a statement that is so opposite of what you really think that it becomes funny. Like you telling me that cleaning your room is your most favorite thing in the world.”

She greeted my fatherly wisdom with a blank stare, oblivious to the slight jab.

This was years ago, around the time Robin started driving. When my earnest efforts to instruct her on the care and feeding of an automobile were filtered through the unique lenses of her teenage worldview. When seemingly minor details were delicately balanced around the far more pressing demands of her social calendar.

“I’m home, Dad,” she called the office to tell me one afternoon. “But I’ve got a small problem.”

My precious daughter had already taught me that “small problem” does not have the same dictionary definition as it does in the teenage lexicon. In adolescent-speak, “small problem” is a coded warning that means: “Dad, sit down … and bring your checkbook.”

“Define small problem.”

“I had a little bit of a flat tire on my car.”

I blinked. “How, precisely, does one have a little bit of a flat tire? In my years of driving, a tire is either inflated, or it is flat. There is no middle ground. That’s like being a little bit… ah, never mind,” I sighed, cutting myself off.

“I probably need you to come help,” she admitted.

Staring at the shredded, tragic remnants of what had once been a perfectly good piece of vulcanized rubber, I asked, “Where did this little bit of a flat occur?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “The car drove funny all the way home.

“All the way home?” I repeated an octave higher, “Did it occur to you to pull over and inspect the vehicle? Change the tire, maybe drive to a nearby service station for assistance?”

“No,” she said, as if explaining long division to a toddler. “I was expecting some calls. I had to get home.”

“Does it make any difference,” I countered, sweat dripping from my brow, “that driving on a flat could ruin the rim? Or, worst of all, risk losing control of the vehicle and endangering your life?”

“I told you, Dad,” she said as though I had suddenly lost my hearing. “I was expecting important calls.”

Fast forward a few months. Same song, second verse. My charming daughter walks into the living room and nonchalantly announces, “My car is making a funny noise.”

“Define funny noise.”

“A rattling sound—usually when the motor is running.”

“Take it by Rodeo Chevrolet tomorrow after school,” I instructed. “Let them look at it.”

 “The motor is what? “I exclaimed to the shop manager the next day. “Well, thank goodness I bought that extended warranty.”

“Yeah, about that,” the shop manager replied, clearing his throat. “To honor any claims for engine damages, the warranty requires receipt copies for all routine oil changes.”

“And about that …” he continued.

That evening, halfway through dinner, I asked. “Robin, why is the shop telling me there is no record of oil changes for your car? Considering as how I sent you there numerous times for oil changes?”

She replied promptly with a big smile, “Dad, I know what you told me, but the little oil light on the dashboard never came on. And I didn’t want to waste your hard-earned money on something the car didn’t need yet.”

Struggling to breathe, I managed to continue. “Robin, you don’t wait for the light. When the oil light comes on, the engine is already dead.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “I thought it was just a friendly reminder to check the oil.”

“You know, Robin,” I said, “I’m just now learning about incredible new things in the auto industry. Tires with inner linings allowing motorists to drive without worrying about a flat. Synthetic oils needing fewer changes. New stuff to me, but I’m just now discovering that my incredible daughter knew about these motoring miracles long ago.”

Silence prevailed.

Robin smiled. “Dad—you’re being facetious—right?

—Leon Aldridge

(Author’s note: I love both both my children equally and with all my heart. Therefore, I try to pick on them equally and with my best efforts. Last week it was Lee, this week it’s Robin. All good memories that I wouldn’t change for anything. Today, Robin drives a big pickup and I have no doubt that she takes impeccable care of it, including tires and oil changes.)

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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’

Lighting up the night skies

“Shine bright like a firework in the darkest night.”
— “Firework” recorded by Katy Perry

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Holiday lights are the best. When colorful decorations delight, and fireworks illuminate the night. 

While I was fascinated by fireworks as a kid, I’m even more mesmerized these days by the growing phenomenon of drone light shows. Mindboggling artistic exhibitions in the nighttime skies using lighted drones driven with computer precision.

My son, Lee, became a skilled drone pilot a few years ago. Marveling at his breathtaking nighttime photos of lights on the horizon intrigued me to give it a try.

Snagging a simple example on sale, I headed for an empty field near my house. Loaded with instructions and optimism, .

“This lever is up; this one is down … I’ve got this.”

Enthusiasm turned to confusion on the first real test flight. “Was that the right stick forward or the left one back?” I watched as the just-out-of-the-box bird flew away, ignoring my futile attempts at any description of control. I was still watching when it disappeared into trees on the far side of the field.

A couple of hours of fighting briars and poison ivy, scanning treetops, and crawling through brush piles proved pointless. Dusk ended my doomed drone search.

Follow-up expeditions the next couple of days yielded not a peep from the locator beacon that the owner’s manual assured would sound if the drone were “accidentally” lost . “Guess I’ll leave the drones to Lee,” I conceded.

My son also loved fireworks as a youngster. With a passion. Every holiday, he stashed money away anticipating the opening of the first fireworks stand. The year of his most memorable fireworks show, he amassed an arsenal capable of defending our southern shores Lake Murvaul home against any invasion. Should one occur.

Dark descended as he opened the large plastic bucket full of “buy one get a dozen free” bargains.

Spectators unfolded lawn chairs and opened refreshment coolers. Lake Murvaul holiday fireworks shoreline displays border on legendary.

“Oohs” and “aahs” arose from the darkness as brilliant, colorful displays began lighting the night sky, painting the water with shimmering reflections.

Lee strated his contributions with small “twirly-thingys” whizzing upward. All was bliss until … until that one spent glowing winged ember thingy drifted downward. The one that descended into the arsenal bucket.

And that’s when the “really big show” began. Everyone broke into retreat mode toward land. But curiosity got the best of me. Looking back at the inferno, I saw several things.

I saw a fireworks display the likes of which I’m pretty sure had never before been seen on the lake, perhaps never since. Rockets shooting in one direction, buzz bombs going off in another. The light was blinding. The noise was deafening. Not since Wolf Blitzer’s CNN coverage of the invasion of Iraq had I witnessed such ferocious firepower.

I saw neighbors hunkering down, dodging bottle rockets as they folded lawn chairs and scrambled for safety.

Then I saw a broom in the boathouse. Wielding the makeshift shovel, I braved the rogue pyrotechnics show, pushing what was left off the pier and into the water.

Almost as fast as it had started, Lee’s fireworks show was over. With a muffled sizzle, the mass of embers, melted plastic, and detonating devices sank in a cloud of steam that lingered over the murky depths.

The silence was deafening. Not one frog or cricket was heard. Then someone applauded. Another. joined in. Clapping spread around the cove.

Lee was devastated. He had just watched weeks of allowance and pay for chores go up in a flash and die in a puff of smoke.

There was talk for days afterward. “Did you see that on the south shore the other night?” Everyone was pretty sure it was the most spectacular event since lightning hit the oil storage tanks over on FM 1970.

It was still being talked about years later, the day we moved from the lake.

Lee recovered, later earned a degree in computer networking and is tech savvy in ways I won’t pretend to understand. I haven’t asked him about fireworks lately. But who knows. He may consider tackling this amazing new field of drone powered nighttime light shows replacing fireworks.

Not me, though. I never did find my derelict drone.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Resolutions are so overrated

“Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst …
Hark, it’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!”

—Ogden Nash, (1902 – 1971) American poet declared by The New York Times as the country’s best-known producer of humorous poetry.

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“Well, I’ve completed my New Year’s resolutions,” a buddy bragged last week.

“Resolutions are so overrated,” I reacted. “They just go in one ‘year’ and out the other.”

I laughed. I thought it was funny. Popping off, however, compelled me to start thinking about some sort of, let’s say, focus, for the new year.

Resolving to make it through another year with a smile and being here this time next year for a progress report is a fantastic focus for any year. Iconic comedian Groucho Marx said it best when he was reportedly asked in an interview what he hoped people would say about him a hundred years from now.

He responded, “I hope they say, ‘Boy, doesn’t he look good for his age?’”

It was also Groucho who said in possibly one of the very few serious quotes he was credited with, “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

Honestly, who does not want to live a long and happy life? Probably no one … except maybe for one of my relatives that comes to mind. Just ask him how he is doing, and he will likely growl, “Well, I was in a good mood this morning, but I am about to get over it.”

Some say he’s not grumpy, just being funny. Really? You should meet him.

A few years ago, I sent said relative a book I enjoyed. Written by UCLA postdoctoral researcher Alex Korb, “The Upward Spiral” validates my thoughts on the rewards of happiness. Korb says that listening to music from the happiest times of our past becomes our happiness in the present because we embrace music associated with intense emotional life experiences.

A happiness seeker as long as I can remember, my happiest memories have always been moments in music. Listening to it, studying it, making it, thinking about it. I can’t be involved with music and be unhappy.

My Uncle Bill, my mom’s baby brother, personified that musical theory long before Kolb’s book appeared in print. And, no, Uncle Bill is not the grumpy relative. He’s the life and humor of every family reunion. He’s also the one who taught me a fun music game many years ago.

Get a bunch of people together and start playing music from your younger years. Encourage every person to share the memories each song evokes. The city where they first heard the tune. The car they were driving at the time. The girl or guy they were dating. Smiles and laughter will be spontaneous.

Uncle Bill’s music game supports another of Korb’s happiness theories. Smile. Smile when you are happy. Smile when you’re not happy. Smile all the time.

“Why would I want to do that,” my aforementioned grumpy relative once asked.

Mom had the answer for that. “Smile! It makes everyone wonder what you’ve been up to.”

According to Korb,“ The brain isn’t always very smart.” The author contends that it responds to the world around us, sorting through random information and looking for clues on how to react. Therefore, when you smile, even when you aren’t happy, smiling fools the brain into thinking you must, in fact, be happy after all. Causing it to send happy signals, even though you really feel otherwise.

So, for 2026, I resolve to keep on enjoying my favorite music, beckoning to those intense emotional memories that keep me smiling, convincing my brain that I’m happy all the time, and keeping everyone wondering … “What is he up to.”

Then what remains, to quote Groucho one last time, “Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.”

So, “Duck, here comes another year!” With it comes my wish for us all. For a happy, blessed, and prosperous year.

Especially for my aforementioned crabby relative.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Angels always close to us

“There is an angel close to you this day. Merry Christmas, and I wish you well.”
—Paul Crume (1912 –1975) Dallas Morning News columnist who wrote a front-page column every day for 24 years.

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As I sit crafting one more Christmas column, I do it relishing in the blessing of memories and personal traditions. Which means one more time, I’ll read my favorite Christmas columns from the work of long-time Dallas Morning News editor Paul Crume.

One, entitled “Christmas Fires,” I will still read this year, despite un-Christmas like 70-degree weather. The other, “To Touch an Angel,” was first published on Christmas Day of 1967 and is still published every Christmas in the Morning News as “Angels Among Us.”

I believe Angels are among us all the time. During this time of the year, reminders of them are seen everywhere on Christmas trees. The tree top angel at my house put in for vacation this year, so there’s a gnome filling in. But I know angels are still around.

Christmas has always been a magical season for me. Special times steeped in the comfort of family and loved ones gathering. Sharing a meal. Laughing. Being thankful to our Creator.  

Times like the Christmas living on the lake when Santa brought us all bicycles. My kids and I enjoyed Christmas morning peddling cheer along county roads around Lake Murvaul.

Then there’s the time we spent a snowy family Christmas in the mountains of Taos, New Mexico. Skiing days and enjoying a tiny tree with gifts, celebrating in our room at the lodge. Magically, Santa still found us.

And how many times have I smiled, recalling the Christmas when my incredibly artistic daughter, Robin, gathered up empty boxes and crumpled paper after gifts were opened, taking it all to her room. It was a while before I discovered she had left new toys under the Christmas tree while replicating Elvis’s Graceland home from the scavenged materials.

It was another 1980s Christmas Eve in Center when I used on my own children, an admonition that my grandmother once used on me. “You better go to sleep before Santa comes.”

Assuming my children were deep in dreams of the Jolly Old Elf, I tackled boxes bearing “Some Assembly Required.” Thinking, “This won’t take long.”

Pushing midnight, the Little Homemaker play kitchen was done, inserting the last tab A into slot 4 and securing with one #6 bolt and one #9 nut. Then came the tricycle, the doll stroller, and stocking stuffers. Just in time to experience the magic of an early Christmas morning sunrise.

Watching my children experience Christmas morning always reminded me of Christmas dawning in Mount Pleasant one 1960s Yule season when I heard a soft voice at my bedroom door. “You think he’s come?”

As the elder sibling realizing that Santa was more than mere magic, my trust became helping preserve the mystery for my younger sisters.

“I don’t know,” I told my youngest sister, Sylvia. “Let’s go see.” With middle sister Leslie also up and curious, we peeked into the living room. Changing colors projected Christmas magic onto the shiny aluminum tree. Under it, a collection of unwrapped gifts glittered in the early morning light.

“I think he’s been here,” I said.

And, about that Christmas Eve warning I borrowed from my grandmother. As a child, Christmas was a time of anticipation. The excruciating wait for Christmas to finally get here. Then waking up Christmas morning, excited to see what St. Nick had left.

We moved a lot back then. Perry Brothers five-and-dime store managers were relocated more often than Methodist ministers. Four times by the time I was in fifth grade. Traveling to East Texas for Christmas made updating forwarding addresses for Santa a full-time job.

There was magic in my grandmother’s bedtime stories on Christmas Eve with her frequent reminders that, “You better go to sleep before ‘ol Santy comes.”

If her stories didn’t put me to sleep fast enough, she typically turned off the bedside lamp, pretending to hear reindeer on the roof.  And I pretended to be asleep, still wishing it were Christmas morning.

My wish for each of you is the same as every year. That you are blessed with the wonderful magic of Christmas, both making memories and reminiscing about them.

In the company of angels close to us.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Christmas traditions, some old, some new

“O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
Of all the trees most lovely.
Each year you bring to us delight.
With brightly shining Christmas light!”
— O Tannenbaum (Christmas tree) old German Christmas song from 1824 originally sung by Melchior Franck.

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Lights are brightly shining. Christmas decorating has started at my house. Emphasis on “started” because for me, decorating is a work in progress. It doesn’t happen overnight. Or even a week. Sometimes, it lasts until Christmas Eve.

Remembering.

That according to Mom, Christmas trees are put in place and decorated the Friday after Thanksgiving, not one day sooner. There was never a Christmas tree in her house on or before Thanksgiving. Ever.

My mother was a traditionalist in many ways. She also practiced “never wear white after Labor Day.” You could set your calendar by it when I was growing up. If the ladies at church were still wearing white, summer was not over. But when Mom put away her white hat, gloves, and shoes, we knew fall was just around the corner.

That “wearing white” thing fell out of tradition before the turn of the last century. But bless her heart, Mom was a diehard. She gave up wearing hats to church only after she and one other lady were the last of the faithful. Even then, she complained that she wasn’t properly dressed for church services.

“Never thought I’d live to see the day,” I remember her saying, “when a lady would go to church without a hat and gloves.”

“What is this country coming to?” is what Mom said after seeing for the first time, a brightly lit Christmas tree adorning the picture window a couple of houses down the street … a whole week before Thanksgiving.  

Historically, Americans found Christmas trees an oddity at any time before German settlers brought the tradition to America in the mid 1800s. Back then, plants and trees that remained naturally green year-round held special meaning in winter. Evergreen boughs over doors and windows were hung to celebrate the winter solstice while looking forward to cold weather giving way to spring’s return.

I appreciated cold weather at Christmas when I missed it while living in Boerne in the Texas Hill Country a few years ago. Where cold weather, as most recognize it, is rare. Short sleeves in December were the norm. I even recall wearing shorts on more than one Christmas day.

It was also a Hill Country Christmas the time the kids and I enjoyed seasonal decorations so much that we left the tree up a few days into the new year. Until Valentine’s Day. We boxed up the Christmas decorations and replaced them with hearts and Cupids. And we loved it! So much so that we rolled right into Easter with it, decorating appropriately, of course. Memorial Day. Followed by Independence Day. And so on.

But that violated one of Mom’s other traditions. “Got to get the tree down after Christmas day.” When the last dish from Christmas dinner was washed and dried, she was on it. “The New Year is coming. Bring me the boxes for those lights and ornaments.”

The first glass ornaments were seen in America in the late 1800s. Electric holiday lights were not common in U.S. homes until rural electrification became widespread in the late 1950s. That was about the same time Christmas decorating began to change.

Mom rocked it in the early 1960s when she bought an aluminum Christmas tree. Her first artificial tree. After first scoffing at artificial trees. We spent nights watching the color wheel change hues on the metallic “leaves” instead of our still somewhat new very first television set. After all, the TV was just black-and-white.

But even with the new tree, Mom never wavered on her traditions. It still went up on Friday after Thanksgiving and was gone soon after Christmas day.

Whether keeping traditions or making my own, I still decorate. Helpers are dwindling. Kids are grown and gone, living off in other cities busy with activities and traditions of their own.

But I still do it. With music and memories.

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
Have a happy holiday
Everyone dancin’ merrily
In the new old-fashioned way.”
— 1958, recorded by Brenda Lee.

Thanksgiving is behind us. Let the season begin. The Christmas tree is up with respect to my mother’s traditions. And recalling many gatherings of Christmases past with family and friends,

I hope Mom will forgive me, however. Once again, I may leave my decorations up for a while after Christmas.

Just for the memories.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

We should be grateful every day

“Seriously, you really don’t have to eat what I cook.“
— Standing offer to my children at mealtime. Thanksgiving dinner or any meal..

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Thanksgiving Day really deserves more respect. Just saying.

One revered day of gratitude, thankful for things like family, friends, comfort, security, health, the freedom to express thanks. And food. Yes, those glorious 3,000-calorie Thanksgiving dinners.

Things for which we should be grateful every day.

Yet, that one day is sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas. Suffocating under discounted sale-priced Halloween masks and yuletide décor shamelessly shoved on store shelves before Labor Day.

The first Thanksgiving was much different. A 1621 religious celebration of prayer and fasting, not feasting. No turkey. No dressing. No pumpkin pie. No Alka Seltzer. No football. Just thanks for crops, weather, and simple blessings. Often celebrated with Native American tribes that helped them survive.

Sarah Josepha Hale, who authored “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” started a drive in 1846 for a national Thanksgiving holiday. Seventeen years later, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a national holiday, hoping it would help heal a divided nation at war.

In 1941, Congress ended efforts by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move the date to the third week of November, his plan to squeeze in another week of Christmas shopping to help an ailing economy. The move just created confusion, so the fourth Thursday of November was officially declared as the permanent date to reflect on things we picture as blessings.

“Freedom From Want” painting by American artist Norman Rockwell.

An early 1940s picture painted by American artist Norman Rockwell, creator of more than 300 Saturday Evening Post covers and some 4,000 paintings during his lifetime, is the image most frequently associated with Thanksgiving. Titled “Freedom from Want,” the painting depicts a family gathering around a celebratory meal. It remains today as a favorite “picture of Thanksgiving.”

Rockwell once said that he painted life not as it was, but what he wished it could be. Maybe that’s what we’re all craving around the holidays, hope for what life should be.

Another American icon offering timeless pictures of America in childhood humor is Hank Ketcham’s cartoons, “Dennis the Menace.” One in particular mirrors Rockwell’s image, with Dennis and his parents sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, heads bowed. In the caption, Dennis offers, “… and I’m thankful the pilgrims didn’t have liver an’ onions for their Thanksgiving meal.”

Let me say, I’m with Dennis. My father liked liver, so Mom cooked it. Too often. And like most kids of my generation, I dared not question any meal Mom prepared. My sisters and I respectfully ate what was set before us.

“When I left home,” I was telling a friend last week, “One of the things on my list vowing to never eat again was liver. A promise I have kept to this day.”

“You mean your mother didn’t cook a separate meal for you and your sisters,” the longtime acquaintance laughed.

Quick to affirm that we had obviously grown up in the same age, my response was, “Nope! If it was on your plate, you were going to eat it before leaving the table. And leaving a family meal was something you didn’t dare do without first asking, ‘May I please be excused?’”

My mother also played the “Mom card” to shame us for wasting food. “Eat it, don’t waste it. You know there are starving children all over the world.”

“Same with my parents,” reported my friend. “One day my sister and I suggested Mom box up her stewed tomatoes and send them to those starving children. We laughed and laughed. Until we noticed the deafening silence and parental glares of disapproval.”

“There were times when I felt like my parents didn’t have a sense of humor, either,” I sympathized.

Varying from my raising only slightly after I became a parent, I gave my kids a standing offer. I told them they didn’t have to eat what I cooked if they didn’t want to.

“Really,” daughter Robin asked the first time. Lee said nothing. He was always good at keeping his mouth shut a little longer than his older sister.

“Sure,” I said, reaching for her plate. “I’ll just put it in the refrigerator and save it for supper tomorrow night.”

My kids never questioned whether I had a sense of humor. Just how I sometimes applied it.

So, here’s my serious wish for a Happy Thanksgiving. May our hearts be filled with genuine gratitude for the things that make this country the best place on earth to live. Thanksgiving Day and every day.

With a small nod of agreement with Dennis The Menace. Thankful that if the Pilgrims menu did include liver or stewed tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner, it never made it into the history books.

—Leon Aldridge

(Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom from Want” (above) appeared inside the March 6, 1943, edition of the Saturday Evening Post magazine. The painting was not intended as a Thanksgiving illustration, it was one of the “Four Freedoms” series by Rockwell symbolizing the aspirations of a world with security and well-being as articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, it quickly became an iconic image associated with the Thanksgiving holiday )

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

My hometown

“Home is not a place … it’s a feeling.”
—Uncredited bit of wisdom I picked up years ago.

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“So, where’s home,” asked the man whose hand I was still shaking. A mutual friend had just introduced us as we all met for lunch at a local restaurant.

“East Texas,” I replied with a smile. “I live in Center, but I grew up in Mount Pleasant. I claim them both as my hometown.”

Even as I said it for the umpteenth time, that statement still sounded somewhat unusual. Odd that I’ve had a Center mailing address through a dozen presidential terms, and while my home in Mount Pleasant years ago was a fourth of that, I still call it my hometown. And what about the various Texas communities where we lived before settling in Mount Pleasant to stay when I was eleven?

Someday, I’ll examine the paper trail in a cardboard box full of evidence of my parents’ pilgrimage from the time before my own memories began. A collection of letters, receipts, car registrations, repair bills, church bulletins, report cards, and black-and-white school pictures.

It wasn’t until after my mother’s death that I realized she had amassed this veritable family history in her cedar chest. I guess I owe her thanks, or maybe the blame, for my own tendency to hang on to similar seemingly worthless pieces of paper.

My family’s last move to Mount Pleasant was just in time for me to finish fifth grade at South Ward Elementary. But evidence in Mom’s hoarded documents hints at previous addresses in Ballinger, Muleshoe, and Midland. Plus, Pampa up in the Panhandle.

My first and oldest cognitive connections from around the age of three or four are of Pampa. I also remember Crockett where we lived next and where I entered first grade. A move to Seymour, Texas, followed where I completed third and fourth grade, and all of fifth grade except those last few weeks spent in Mr. Mattingly’s home room in Mount Pleasant.

So, I contemplated, what really qualifies one place over another as “my hometown?”

To me, it’s where our heart was first grounded. Places we associate with the “firsts” in life, such as our first friends. Friends remembered from fifth grade in Seymour are tall, skinny Joe, with whom I played basketball at recess. Mike, a neighbor I rode bicycles with to the park. And Carolyn, the first girl I exchanged valentines with in fifth grade.

Many firsts became memories in Mount Pleasant. Some with those end-of-the-year fifth graders from South Ward when we graduated from high school together seven years later. And some of those graduates who became college roommates and long-time friends beyond high school.

First dates, first jobs, my first car, and house—those memories all began in Mount Pleasant.

“Home is sometimes a place you grow up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to return to,” I added to the lunch conversation. I thought about Mount Pleasant, and how after college, I tried to plant roots there twice. But that path just wasn’t in the cards.

I took the path more traveled, rooting in Center many years ago. Enough years to see my children begin school and make their first memories. Enough years to amass many friends and loved ones, and to lose some of both. Enough years to have tasted happiness and to endure heartache.

And even enough years to see good eating establishments come and go. Which is where this missive started. Over lunch.

“So, while my home has been in Center for most of my life, I also consider Mount Pleasant my hometown,” I concluded, thinking about some of my “trips home.”

I return occasionally. Navigating new highways and bypasses makes driving more stressful than it was when I learned to drive there. And, though the old streets are familiar, the places and the faces have constantly changed over time. while the memories of “firsts” linger there like it was yesterday.

“I never thought about having two hometowns,” my new acquaintance offered as we worked on chips, salsa, and sweet tea.

“Yeah,” I drawled. “I think home is anywhere we leave a piece our heart.

“Because hometown is not really a place … it’s a feeling in the heart.”

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo info: My youngest sister, Sylvia, on the front porch at 206 Redbud Lane in Mount Pleasant, Texas, “home and hometown” to me and my sisters Leslie and Sylvia. There is no date on the photo, but I’m guessing about 1962 or ’63. I have no clue what she was modeling on her head. It may or may not have had anything to do with what appears to be Easter baskets behind her. The house that was our home is still there today, but it’s been extensively remodeled and doesn’t look the same as I remember it. Sylvia moved to her eternal hometown December 14, 2023. )

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

It all boils down to one thing

“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”
— Edward Parker Helms, actor, comedian, writer, and producer.

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“I miss the good ol’ days,” someone said to kick off the coffee klatch last week.

“Yeah? What do you miss the most,” another queried?

Answers from those who had gathered to solve the world’s problems over strong, hot coffee were many. “Drivers who actually understand the concept of turn signals and stop signs.“ “How about people who let you finish a sentence without interrupting?” “Manners. Where did the good old day’s of being a decent person go?” “Courtesy — I remember my mother telling me that if you can’t say something nice about someone, just smile and don’t say anything at all.” “I miss how people could talk about their differences without calling each other names.”

“Yeah,” one of the problem solving coffee sippers agreed, ‘”My grandaddy said when slinging slurs and vulgar names start, be kind and understand that it’s folks who can’t help it. They just never learned an educated vocabulary to have a civil discussion with.”

Thoughts and opinions bounced around before silence fell on my side of the table. Just as I had a story to share.

Imagine that.

“It all boils down to one thing,” I began my two cents and change. “Respect. Years ago, as a young editor, I wrote what I believed was a balanced editorial. Carefully presenting both sides of a controversial local issue before supporting my position with facts. After committing my points to posterity, I sent the piece to press for the next edition.”

In those days, I arrived at the office by 6 a.m. at the latest to get a head start in the morning’s quietness before unlocking the door right before 8. The next morning, a visitor walked up as I was turning the key in the lock. A local attorney, a well-known and respected community leader. He was twice my age, tall and broad-shouldered, and his deep wisdom was matched by his deeper voice.

In his hand was a rolled-up copy of that day’s edition. The one bearing my carefully crafted editorial opinion.

“You got a minute for me,” he asked politely.

I returned his civility with a smile and, “Yes sir — always. Come in. The coffee is on.”

We sat down in my office, and he began, “I’ve read your editorial in today’s paper, and I disagree with your opinion. I think your argument is flawed.”

“OK,” I replied politely. “I did my research, and feel confident in having published it. But that said, with your experience and wisdom, I am eager to hear your viewpoints.”

I listened to him with respect and without interrupting. Respect for my elders, respect for authority, and courtesy in hearing out the opinions of others were virtues my parents instilled in me at an early age. My father summed it up by reminding me that a wise man learns more by listening than he does by talking.

When my morning visitor concluded, I expressed my gratitude to him for taking the time to share his thoughts and views with me. I also told him that I fully respected his opinions and would research them further, but for the moment, I still felt strongly that I was on the right track with mine.

He was quiet for a moment. I likewise sat silently. I had no idea what he might say next. That’s when he smiled and said, “Well, I thank you for hearing me out. I wish I could have persuaded you otherwise about your views, but I respect your right to your opinions, and I support your right to express them. Even if we can’t agree.”

Then he said something that I have come to understand more fully as the years have passed. “If we ever fail to respect each other’s freedom to express an opinion, I fear, we will have lost our country.”

With a hearty handshake and a smile, he rolled up the newspaper, put it under his arm and said, “Feel free to stop my office anytime for coffee.” Then he walked out the door.

“I recall that conversation often,” I started to wrap up my story. “Usually when I consider lifelong friends who might hold views on topics ranging from ‘politics to pole cats,’ as my grandmother used to say, very different from mine. And I value them knowing that our mutual respect exemplifies our belief that true friendship outweighs our differences in opinion. That hate and differences of opinion do not have to travel the same path.

I ended last week’s coffee shop commentary saying, “I had good parenting examples. My dad was a lifelong Democrat. My mother was an unrelenting Republican. Each voted their convictions, effectively canceling the other’s vote in every election. Yet, they were happily married for 63 years. Through love, they respected each other’s opinions, even when they disagreed.

“It worked then,” I said with a shoulder shrug. “And I believe it would work today. If more people just realized that with love and respect, we can salvage some of those good old days.

“Before they are completely gone.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Write so that memories live on

“Tell me facts, and I’ll learn. Tell me truth, and I’ll believe you. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever”
— Native American Proverb”

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We became gas pump neighbors one afternoon a few days ago.

You know, people we meet while watching numbers on the gas pump climb higher than an August afternoon heat index. Exchanging smiles with strangers at the pump while we’re trying to remember where we needed to be ten minutes ago … before remembering that we forgot to gas up last night.

That’s what we do because we were raised to be kind; to be friendly. “Don’t be stuck up,” Mom instructed. Friendliness mission accomplished, I returned to watching pump numbers escalate.

That’s when my new gas pump neighbor engaged me. “I enjoy your stories in the paper.” I did the next thing we were raised to do. Be polite … and don’t let on like you don’t know who they are. “Hey,” I said, buying time. “How’s it going. And thank you, I appreciate you reading my weekly ramblings.”

You have more stories than a book has pages,” he laughed. “I love ‘em. Are those all of those stories real?”

“Sure,” I scoffed. “You can’t make up stuff like that. “Mostly memories,” I added. “Things that happened growing up. Something I remember from a few years ago; a few days ago.”

“Well, I enjoy reading them,” he smiled. “Keep it up.”  

“Thank you,” I said again. “We all share many of the same basic memories. Only the people and the places change. All stories just waiting to be told. I’ll bet you have a story.”

He laughed, and we parted ways going in different directions. The exchange was another reminder of the importance of memories and the value of capturing them. Documenting them. Sharing them as often as possible. Something that didn’t dawn on me until a long time after I had been getting paid to write them.

I probably owe the credit for that to one of my journalism students at Stephen F. Austin State University, a generation of young writers ago.

Charged with imparting writing skills, tools and techniques to aspiring journalists, I enjoyed challenging young minds to find and write their first story. “Everybody has a story,” I offered one day to end a lecture period. “They may not know they do, but that is your first challenge. Strike up a conversation and just listen.”

“That’s easy for you to do,” countered one student. “You have age and experience, and you know a lot of people. It’s not that easy for someone our age.”

“Listening and understanding have no age requirements,” I replied. “Ask questions about what they remember from growing up. About their proudest moments. What they hope to achieve in the years to come. Talk about dreams. Then, be quiet and listen with appreciation. You’ll hear more stories than you can write.”

Long time newspaper mentor and friend Jim Chionsini executed the storytelling technique to a fine art. For instance, when asked for suggestions on the best way to tackle a tough situation at work, he often replied with a story rather than an explanation. “Well, let me tell you how Les Daughtry down at the Galveston News handled issues like that.”

It was also Jim who distinguished between memories that made good stories for publication from the few that are often better left unpublished. “Just because something we did was a bad idea doesn’t mean it isn’t a good memory,” he would laugh. “Just keep those kind among friends.”

Our stories, whether published or simply shared with friends and family, need to be told. And that’s where the value of memories takes root. We all should be writing. Preserving snapshots of our past, moments in our minds, tidbits of history that go untold and lost to time unless we write about them.

That, in my estimation, is the most significant challenge that has no limitations in terms of experience or age for writers. Everyone has a story. Most of us have many. I write as many as I can for weekly columns. And I write some of those just for my personal files, too. But I write so that memories will live on. For family and friends after I’m no longer able to write them.

We all have stories. Even my new gas pump neighbor had one. I’ll be writing his, too.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.