Linus had his blanket. I had a rabbit. His name was Harvey.

Most children have a favorite stuffed animal. Recently, my mother came across two that belonged to me when I was quite young. One was a clown I don’t remember much about, but it was obviously one with which I snuggled so tightly that his plastic face disintegrated.

My grandmother sewed a new cloth face on the clown to keep me going.

From the clown, I graduated to a monkey. I’d seriously ...

Why?

That one-word question that’s always asked when life’s apple cart is upended.

People do not like change. When fear is added to change, it creates behavior and attitudes that manifest in folks who otherwise are levelheaded.

Throughout history, change and fear have joined forces many times.

The Plague, smallpox, polio, Ebola, and other diseases threatened and took lives.

Wars throughout history affected and changed families forever. Just in my lifetime, I saw those who served in Vietnam come home suffering the effects of Agent ...

Photo courtesy of John Moore: Columnist John Moore’s grandmother, Leona Pickett, with three of her six children, circa 1949.

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.

This was when long distance phone calls could cost as much as a few dollars a minute.

I never thought much about it until one day one of my ...

Photo credit: DanielJHalePhotography.com.

Columnist John Moore’s friend Daniel’s dog Kirby, in a photo taken in August 2014 on Pacific Beach. San Diego, California.

The price you pay when you lose a beloved animal is so steep that every time I lose one, I always say, “Never again.”

I’ve written about this topic before, but after following the adventures of a friend of mine’s dog on Facebook for a number of years, the news of the pup’s passing brought a tear and the need for an ...

Photo: John Moore was given the original on-air light during a remodel of a country radio station where he worked as a DJ in the 1980s and 90s – the last era of real country music, according to Moore.

The old joke when I worked as a country music DJ was that our station played both kinds of music – Country and Western.

But today, I don’t even recognize what’s called, “Country Music.”

Every “country” song I hear now has virtually the same ...