star-telegram.com: Pat Riddle

Haslet twins plan special meals for 'Nana' and 'Poppa'

Sun, 04 May 2008 04:38 CDT

By PAT NIMMO RIDDLE

Last Christmas 12-year-old twins Morgan and McKenzie Dunlap, who are in the seventh grade and live in Haslet, promised a very special present to their great-grandparents, Lucille Norton, 88, and Harvey Norton, 92, who live in North Richland Hills.

Beginning in February their gift was to plan, shop, prepare and serve a complete meal at the home of their "Nana" and "Poppa" each month throughout the year.

"They do their grocery shopping and plan and prepare the food themselves, including the main course with vegetables, salad, dessert and even ice tea," Lucille said. "They won't even let me help them clean up."

Their mom, Michele Dunlap, takes them shopping and gives any advice needed; then she and their dad, Coyt Dunlap, also eat with them, "which adds to the evening's enjoyment," Lucille said.

So far the meals have included a chicken casserole, roast beef and Mexican food with cherry pie, she said.

Both twins are enjoying the experience: "They always tell different stories about olden times," McKenzie said.

"It's special because it's for our great-grandparents," Morgan added.

Says Lucille: "Harvey and I think it's the best gift we've ever received, because it is so personal."

The Dunlaps have one other daughter, Shelby, but she hasn't gotten in on the cooking because she's a freshman at Abilene Christian University.

The family plans to visit her next fall while she's attending a semester at England's Oxford University, her mom said.

Snakes alive!

Teaching fifth-graders 30 years in Lubbock, Arlington and the Birdville school district's Grace Hardeman Elementary was mostly enjoyable for North Richland Hills resident Julie Cunningham, but she vividly remembers three months when it wasn't much fun.

It happened at Lubbock's Hardwick Elementary School, where classrooms were in open-concept mode divided by a low wall. Cunningham had no trouble seeing the boa constrictor named Clyde, who lived two classrooms away in an aquarium-type, wire cage and was owned by art teacher Steve Teeters.

"I told Mr. Teeters it would scare me to death if Clyde ever escaped from his cage and showed up in my classroom," Cunningham said. "He was almost 5 feet in length, and was in the brown tones and really pretty -- if you can think snakes are pretty."

Books were piled on top of the aquarium to keep Clyde safely inside, but one day he disappeared, she said.

Clyde could go a long time without food or water, but he had been gone so long everyone thought that he had escaped.

It was three months later that Clyde apparently came out from the low, hollow wall next to her classroom during the night, Cunningham said.

"The next morning I heard two girls screaming, so I dropped everything and ran back there, and Clyde was right outside the wall in my room."

"I turned around to scream, and Mr. Teeters was right behind me, and I screamed in his face.

"He picked Clyde up and put him in his cage, but after that, the principal said he had to go, so he was donated to a middle school's science lab."

Travelers take unexpected in stride

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:37 CDT

By PAT NIMMO RIDDLE

Traveling can provide some interesting experiences and challenges.

Just ask Haslet residents Joyce Yates and hubby Larry, who is in the steel business and is president of a cattle breeder's association.

The pair left on a three-day, business/pleasure trip to Houston, stopping in Jewett to talk to a steel mill official, who gave them some advertising T-shirts, said Joyce.

Joyce had packed a couple of suitcases carefully, mindful that on a previous trip, "Larry had griped and said we should travel a little lighter," Joyce said. "But in Houston everybody dresses up, even the people showing the animals."

But when a porter at their Houston hotel went to get their luggage, it wasn't there. Except for Larry's garment bag -- into which Joyce had stuffed a pair of her jeans -- and her small cosmetics bag, their suitcases were still in the middle of their bedroom floor in Haslet. So they went shopping at a nearby store for necessities, Joyce said.

"On the way to our hotel room, I asked Larry: 'How do you like traveling light?' but he just gave me a look," she added, laughing.

They slept in the Jewett T-shirts, and Judy shopped the next morning for a couple of tops to go with her good jeans.

"It was a fun trip, and I don't think Larry will gripe anymore about traveling light," Judy said.

More travel fun: On a recent cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel, Mexico, North Richland Hills travelers Buddy and Barbara Cox, Clayton and Ann McGilvray, plus this columnist and hubby George met some fascinating people.

In Jamaica, we hired a guide who called herself "Mad Donna" to drive us on a wonderful two-hour trip around Montego. She showed us the slum where she spent the first five years of her life, middle-class homes and then multimillion-dollar seaside villas overlooking the Montego Bay area.

Most fascinating were the ackee trees. Their reddish-orange fruit -- poisonous until it opens -- helps the very poor to survive, she said. The tree was brought to Jamaica by Capt. William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, she added. We held a fruit that had opened naturally, but none of us were brave enough to taste it.

Aboard ship were Cynthia and Don Nettles, who live near Brazos Bend State Park with 11 cats, several horses, two pythons and some lizards without legs.

They buy frozen mice and rats from a mouse factory in the Fort Worth area for their snakes, Don said. "A bag of 50 pinkies -- baby mice without fur -- costs about $3.50."

Rimshot: One of the most frequently asked questions aboard ship, said our delightful British cruise director, Mark Price, is "How often do these ships sink?" he said. "I tell them, 'just once.'"

Author to speak on 'Amazing Grace'

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:39 CST

By PAT NIMMO RIDDLE

Eric Metaxas, author of the bestselling book, Amazing Grace, will be the speaker March 28 at Fort Worth Christian School's annual celebration dinner and fundraiser at the Hilton in downtown Fort Worth. Metaxas' book chronicles the heroic campaign by William Wilberforce to end slavery in Great Britain, said Mary Witt, the North Richland Hills school's director of communications/special events.

"We are very excited, as his book is the companion to the inspiring movie of the same name," she said.

The book describes Wilberforce's remarkable life as a member of the British Parliament, his work as a human rights activist and cultural reformer, and his conversion to evangelical Christianity.

Before Wilberforce, few thought slavery was wrong, but after Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong, Metaxas says in his book. He changed the world.

Also during the Fort Worth Christian celebration, Kelly Jeffrey Vaughn of the Class of 1988 will be honored as Alumnus of the Year. She and husband, Randy, who now live in Northeast Fort Worth, recently returned from missionary work since 1997 in Benin in Africa. Also to be named will be the school's Teacher of the Year, Volunteer of the Year and winner of the Lorene Cunningham Service Award.

A reception and book signing for sponsors will begin at 6:15 p.m. followed by the dinner at 7. Tickets cost $125 with sponsorship tables of 10 available. For information, call Lisa Jennings, assistant to the president, at 817-520-6510.

Distinguished Lion: Bedford resident Merlin Carstenson is a very special member of the Colleyville Lions Club. Carstenson, who is 89, recently celebrated being a member of the Lions Club 60 years after first joining it in 1947 in Maryville, Mo.

"Many of us were not even born, and others of us were just entering school when Merlin decided to join the Lions Club," said Jerome Davis, Colleyville resident and member of the club.

Carstenson, a hog marketer in Maryville, shipped animals to packers all over the United States, he said.

"I had a friend who was a Lion and I just liked the way they were helping the community," he said.

Carstenson was a member of that club for many years and served as president, Davis said. Carstenson moved to St. Joseph, Mo., in 1970 and later retired to care for his wife, Eileen, who had Alzheimer's disease for 12 years before her death in 1986.

"She was a nice gal," he said. "What takes me through a lot of it is that old saying: 'It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.' I was so lucky over 50 years."

He moved to this area about three years ago at the insistence of his daughter and son-in-law, Carol Ann and Rick Phillips of Keller. Another son, Steven, lives in Des Moines, Iowa. Merlin's son Chris died of a disease contracted during the Vietnam War. Carstenson also has five grandchildren and five greats.

Soon after moving here, Carstenson joined the Colleyville Lions Club.

"It's a very active club, and they work hard and play hard," he said. "We collected 7,597 eyeglasses last year, and our slogan is 'We Serve.'"

Being a member of the Lions Club is a joy to him, Carstenson said.

"It's a wonderful organization. We kid a lot between other clubs, but the Lions Club is the largest club internationally."