World AIDS day for 2008

It has been many years since I first heard of “AIDS”. The whole idea was incomprehensible and inconceivable. And I was of the age of invincibility…as most teenagers are. Now many years later, and many friends and acquaintances fewer, it is an even bigger concern. Not only for the current group of invincible young lives, but for a whole nation of people at risk of extinction because of this deadly virus. On a more personal level, in my own profession, the design world has lost many dear friends and colleagues.

I am proud of my country’s contributions to help control this crisis and to someday elliminate it…but it is going to take the conscious and monetary effort of all nations to eradicate this plague. As a parent, not only is it my responsibility to make sure my own children are informed and precautious, but to make sure that they spread that knowledge with compassion and concern for all human beings.

Please don’t assume that you or your own loved ones are not at risk from this deadly virus…because when it comes to AIDS, there is no division of the haves and have nots. Make sure that your self and your children are pro-active against AIDS.

Grandmother was always "Green"...and sometimes orange

If my grandmother was alive today she would be wondering what all the fuss was over “being green”, because grandmother always lived her life by those principles…if anything, she would be thinking that people were finally using their plain ‘ole common sense that God gave them.

When I was very young, I remember my grandmother’s frequent trips to one of the few “health food” stores in Houston (which was a far cry from Wholefoods) to buy her organic carrots…. She drank so much carrot juice that her hands and feet turned orange. We got a good laugh out of that. And of course, what was left over from the juicer went into her compost pile.

Grandmother was a writer, and when the gardening bug bit her, her literary focus turned to writing about organic gardening. She didn’t have the benefit of the internet to do her research, so most of it was done in her own backyard laboratory…oh, Grandmother would have loved the internet! Most of her articles were published in Rodale’s “Organic Gardening” magazine. When she ran out of backyard to put in more planting beds, she and my grandfather moved to Brenham where she had several acres to indulge her obsession. Before long the two of them had a huge organic Herb farm with a mail order business and a following from around the world. One of her last writings was a book “Onions, Leeks, and Garlic” from the Texas A & M university press…

If that wasn’t enough to keep them busy, they had a successful antique business called the “Yankee Peddler” to attend to as well…recycling at it’s finest!

Both grandparents came from frugal German stock, and to waste anything, including time, were not to their liking. Customers that wasted my grandfather’s time by “just browsing” were given special consideration on pricing…an up-charge!

This photo from The Calvert Hotel reminds me of their shop.

Yes, grandmother was ahead of the times when it comes to being green, but how I wish she had lived to enjoy the internet…she would have been a master blogger!