Photo credit: Ronda Fleming Pounds

Columnist John Moore went home 40 years after high school graduation to do a book signing. He was worried no one would attend. He was wrong. Even Spiderman showed up.

Of all the buildings on my high school campus, there was only one in which I’d never entered. That was home economics.

In the 1970s, guys didn’t take home ec. We took football, track, and other manly electives. Home economics was for girls.

But on this day, nearly 40 ...

The Old Farmer’s Almanac said it was time for me to plant my potatoes and corn. But the weather forecast called for a gullywasher. That’s a fancy weather term for a lot of rain.

So I waited. And waited. And waited.

When the rain finally stopped, I was two weeks past when I should’ve had my potatoes and corn in the ground.

Now, I’m not the best at deciphering all that’s in the Farmer’s Almanac, but if I’m reading this correctly, I’m now ...

We’re losing the art of conversation and small talk.

No one else was better at both than my parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

Before cable TV, and certainly before iPads and iPhones, there was a phenomenon that is now becoming extinct – face-to-face conversations. Visiting someone for the sole purpose of talking.

Those who grew up during the depression and the Baby Boomers who followed, learned how to make conversation. My family had little money to divert ourselves to fancy activities, so conversation and ...

Photo credit: John Moore

Photo: Columnist John Moore uses the last full service gas station in the town where he lives.

Before he was Maverick or Jim Rockford, actor James Garner was a gas station attendant.

A buddy of his who was a soda jerk kept telling him that he was good looking enough to be an actor. But Garner wasn’t interested in being an actor.

That changed after he returned from his military service in Korea. He visited his former soda jerk buddy ...