America really is The Land of Opportunity. Even if there’s only one opportunity, and that opportunity is cutting the grass.

Ashdown, Arkansas, was a pretty typical small American town in the 1960s and 1970s.

Kids weren’t just handed things. If we wanted something, we were told to work for it.

At my house that was the case. It was also the case at the homes of all of my friends.

Want a new stereo? Go make some money. Want a new bicycle? Get a ...

In the South, we believed with all of our hearts what we were told when we were children.

Even if it was wrong.

In the 1960s, the RCA color console TV my family had on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, could make you go blind.

It could if you believed what our mom told us.

Mom: “Scoot back from that television. If you sit too close, it’ll make your eyes stick on blurry, and eventually, you’ll go blind.”

Me: “Really? Cool.”

Never mind the fact that ...