Each time we have a significant weather event, it seems to turn into a contest for storytelling. Each person tries to top the current weather with a story of another weather incident they lived through that was far worse.
Most of us have a box or other container where we keep items we feel are important enough to carry with us throughout our lives. Mine is a cardboard box. It includes things that might not mean much to others, but do to me.
Do you ever wonder why they couldn’t just leave paper towels like they were?
My father would load my sister and me into his ‘52 Chevy truck, and he’d steer down the gravel road leading to the homestead where my mom was raised.
Please forgive me, for I have become biscuit backslidden.
Nixon was in the White House and Scooby-Doo was on our school lunch boxes. It was 1969. For a kid, life was good.
One of the neatest feelings of youth was saving up enough money to buy that next record you wanted.
In my previous column, I mentioned my resolution to help others during the New Year. Some readers felt that resolutions were a waste of time, while others felt resolutions are admirable, but not sustainable.
In my previous column, I mentioned my resolution to help others during the New Year. Some readers felt that resolutions were a waste of time, while others felt resolutions are admirable, but not sustainable.
When trying to decide on a 2021 resolution on how to improve myself, a thought that had popped into my head recently came back to the forefront.
Each Christmas Eve in the 1960s, my sister and I would take a ride in my grandmother’s sled.
The ways of the South are not the ways of the rest of the country. I’ve never been to New York City, but from what I hear, the folks there say exactly what they think.
The days after Thanksgiving. When married men go to the ER for a new cast from falling off the roof while installing the Christmas decorations their wives insist on, and single men sit around in their underwear watching sports and consuming adult beverages.
Most of us celebrate Thanksgiving without a second thought. That’s not how it was intended.
For someone named Norm, he was anything but.
When we moved into our house several years ago, it was during the month of June. A scruffy tree with small green leaves was blocking our view of the pond. I said I was going to cut it down.
I’m fairly certain my dreams have a drug dealer.
I’m old enough to remember needing to dial only four numbers to call someone. And when ZIP codes weren’t necessary.
If you grew up in the South, you could tell what your momma was about to make based on the bowl or casserole dish she had sitting on the kitchen counter.
They call them seasons. I think that’s because each adds a specific type of sensory spice to that quarter of the year.
Columbo is the best TV detective America has ever had.
I was in my 50s when I started my writing career. When most people were enjoying their newfound discounts at Denny’s and Cracker Barrel, I was reinventing myself. Even though I didn’t know it at the time.
“Like many pals, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could have a pretty good argument now and then, but not let it affect their close friendship.”
Do signs really change anyone’s mind?
The curling iron changed things. From the male perspective, not necessarily in a good way.
Folks who aren’t from the South invariably aren’t familiar with grits. When they come for a visit, they often twist their eyebrows into a John Belushi-type look after they spot them on their breakfast plate.
My father couldn’t pass a roasted peanut stand without stopping to buy a bag. He loved them.
Charlie is 7. Part Basset and part Beagle, he was placed in an animal shelter. Not once, but twice. That means he went through three different homes.
Writers do what we do because we are unable to not do it. In spite of our efforts, most who write for a living can best be described with one word: broke.
The first TV dinners came from a mistake. That mistake led to a childhood of quick and easy meals.
In the summer, all of the kids went swimming.
It seemed at the time that my senior year in high school was busy — and tumultuous. That’s because it was.
What the heck is a Doobie Brother, anyway?” my father asked.
The great thing about growing a lot of your own food is the ability to walk out the back door and pick it.
I remember it as clearly as yesterday. There it was in my Weekly Reader: “By the year 2000, the United States and the rest of the world will be using the metric system.”
My hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas, had Walmart No. 17. They’ve since built a Supercenter, but during my early teen years, it was a small store.
When I was a kid, things didn’t break as often as they do now. If you bought something at Sears Lawn and Garden, you needed to run over it with an 18-wheeler to render it nonfunctional.
In the South, the only thing you can say that’s bigger fightin’ words than “Why didn’t you put beans in your chili?” is to speak ill of dry rub on ribs.
I’ve always worked at least two, sometimes three jobs. My dad said it built character. Maybe so, but what I noticed was it built my bank account.
The yards had been mostly vacant on the street around the corner from our house, save for the tricycles, small bikes and other toddler transportation.
Rush Limbaugh single-handedly revived AM radio. In 1988, his syndicated talk show brought people back to a place they had left for the FM dial.
When we think of someone becoming an instant sensation, we think of the internet.
We now take them for granted. But not so long ago a washer and dryer were a luxury. Actually, a washer was a luxury. A dryer was for rich people.
When you’re stuck in your house for weeks on end, there’s an undeniable temptation to eat more. It creeps up on you at first, but soon the cravings hit you like a high school girlfriend who caught you looking at a cheerleader.
How is it that we’ve managed to cram virtually every necessity we need into one single cell phone but I still have seven TV remotes on the table next to my chair?
My dad and grandfathers taught me that if someone needs help, and you have a skill set that allows you to assist them, you should do it.
There are two true tests for how solid your marriage is — COVID-19 quarantine and hanging wallpaper together.
Linus has his blanket. I had a rabbit. His name was Harvey.
Why? That one-word question is always asked when life’s apple cart is upended.
When I still lived at home with my parents I went to see my grandparents often. After I moved away from my hometown I made it a point to call my grandparents at least weekly.
The price you pay when you lose a beloved animal is so steep that every time I lose one I say, “Never again.”
