There was always one room in every Southern home that was no man’s land – the parlor. Some called it the sitting room, while others called it the drawing room. It contained the nicest furniture, fresh flowers in the window. And it was the most boring room in the house.

I don’t know why it was called either. We weren’t allowed to sit in it, and drawing was definitely out of the question. If we’d gone near the room with crayons, ...

I grew up in the far southwest corner of Arkansas. Nature drove the speed of life, and the towns breathed at an unhurried pace. Even now when I return there, the clock seems to slow and things just don’t move as fast.

The countryside in between each community was stitched together by gravel roads and pasture land. You could drive for miles without seeing anyone, but when you did, they weren’t a stranger.

For all who grew up in a similar setting, ...

There’s a rhythm to the seasons that you can feel in your bones when you grow up in a place like southwest Arkansas.

Long before supermarkets swallowed up every bite of our food into cellophane and fluorescent lights, there was a time when what you ate came from the land, and you knew the taste of the seasons.

I grew up in the South in the 1960s and 70s, when a hot summer day might find us driving the winding roads around ...

English is a language full of leftovers. It’s like the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Filled with things we just can’t seem to toss out.

The difference of course is that at least with what we put on the bottom shelf of the fridge, we do throw that out. Eventually.

Conversation with my grandson:

Grandson: “Grandpa John, do you want me to scrape the rest of the food on my plate into the trash?”

Me: “Julian, in this house, we don’t throw out perfectly ...

“Bummer” was common slang when I was a teen—a simple, short word that referred to something we didn’t like.

A girl turning down your request to go to a movie was a bummer. So was her accepting—and then wanting more at the snack bar than you had money to buy.

Being short on cash for Milk Duds is always a bummer.

Like many of our slang terms, the meaning of “bummer” as it was used a half-century ago bears little resemblance to its ...

My friend runs a precious metals shop, selling mostly gold and silver. I was there to discuss those very things when a pocket watch caught my eye. An Elgin.

My buddy sells a few watches, mostly Rolex. That’s what made the Elgin stand out.

“Never seen a pocket watch in your store,” I told him.

“It’s just for looks,” he said. “I bought them to scrap for the gold.”

I was taken aback. My father collected pocket watches, and I inherited them when he ...

There are many once-common aspects of the telephone that are now gone.

How many phones people had, etiquette for using one, how phones worked, the existence of telephone company operators, and phone service features.

Growing up in Ashdown, Arkansas, those I knew who had a phone usually just had one. People of means had an extension. Usually in the master bedroom.

Many families didn’t have a phone at all. A telephone was relatively expensive and monopolized by Ma Bell, who charged what she ...

One of the necessities of my youth is now one of your best bets to prevent vehicle theft: a stick shift.

I watch a lot of YouTube, and particularly a lot of videos of police chases and crime being foiled.

It would seem that today’s youth can easily be stopped from stealing your vehicle or carjacking you if your truck or car has a standard transmission.

There are several videos online of kids trying to commit grand theft auto. They hop in all ...

In some cultures, people wash the feet of guests who arrive at their home. At my parents’ house, I didn’t wash the feet of guests, but I did offer to shine their shoes.

And a surprising number of guests accepted.

When I was in Cub Scouts, we were able to select projects that, when completed, went toward credit for badges. Badges are how you advance in Scouts.

At some point, my dad found an old shoeshine kit, bought it, and gave it to ...