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 ...

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 ...

Photo: The January 18, 2020 reunion at Barksdale Air Force Base of members of the Secret Squirrel Mission. Columnist John Moore’s friend, Warren Ward, is fourth from right.

There were only a handful of people in the world who knew what was about to happen. My friend was one of them.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, a number of response options by the United States began to form in Washington, D.C.

Options that would send Saddam’s Iraqi army back from whence ...

Some people just outlive their hairstyle.

During the 60s, both my father and his next-youngest brother still wore 50s hairstyles. Especially my uncle.

I don’t know if it’s called a ‘ducktail’ or what the exact name is, but in my family, the look was hanging on. I suspect folks from the Brylcreem factory were very appreciative that, thanks to my dad and uncle, they were still employed.

The hairstyles they wore didn’t match the longer, dryer look of the other dads and uncles ...