Pink flamingos. Chalk and concrete figures. Cast iron pots with flowers. Old school bells. Cars on blocks.

The yard art of yesterday.

I’ve always felt that Southerners were so proud to have a yard with grass in it that we set things out to keep the grass from being stolen.

Many of us grew up in very rural surroundings, such that the yards weren’t cut by lawn mowers, they were cut by billy goats.

Also, Southern women do not possess the ability to have ...

Christmas 1973 had a focus. All I wanted was the new Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle set.

The short sidewalk in front of our little red brick house on Beech Street was the perfect length to launch and then watch my hero ride off the end of the concrete and into the soft grass.

I’d seen Evel’s unsuccessful jumps and had determined that if he’d had softer places to slide into after descending the ramp, he wouldn’t have broken all of those bones.

That ...

Rainy days in the 1960s started with both of the captains. Captain Kangaroo and Cap’n Crunch.

A bowl of Cap’n Crunch, placed strategically on the corner of my parents’ Formica dinette table allowed me to shovel those tasty, compact cubes of processed grains and sugar into myself. All while watching Mr. Moose drop ping pong balls onto the captain’s head.

Every weekday in the little red brick house on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, started with the Cap’n and Captain, but the ...

They call it, “click bait.”

It’s when you come across something online that sounds amazing, so you click on it to learn more.

Click bait is something that turns out to be nothing as good as it sounded. Bait and switch. You think you’re get something that you’re not.

But in this case, what I thought was click bait turned out to be a good catch. Actually, a great catch.

Pencils.

I love pencils. Love is a light word. If I wrote out the word ...