I’ll Do It Myself

I understand that people have to make a living, but sometimes, the markup on repair services borders on ridiculous.

Case in point: I was recently walking on the treadmill, when it suddenly just stopped.

Now, I know that this is shocking, but try to get past the part about me being on a treadmill and focus on the rest of the story.

We bought a state-of-the-art treadmill from Sears back in 2002. The guy sold me this newfangled piece of exercise equipment that ...

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I Get Mail

 

When I began jotting down my thoughts each week back in 2013, I didn’t plan on what started out as a blog meant to document my life, becoming a newspaper column.

This blog also appears as a weekly column in the Tyler Morning Telegraph and The Little River News.

The first is near where I live in East Texas, and the other is in my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas.

However, I’m glad that it did. Each newspaper was kind enough to ...

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The Pioneer Skillet

My momma’s skillet and this columnist are featured in the fall issue of the Pioneer Woman Magazine.

Well, it used to be my momma’s skillet. She gave it to me when I left home almost 40 years ago.

And there it is on page 72 of Ree Drummond’s new magazine.

If by chance, you aren’t familiar with Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), she has built a media empire that grew out of a blog she began writing in 2006. It chronicles her daily ...

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I Love You, Too

You can always tell from the timbre of the voice of the person on the other end of the line when bad news is coming.

A thousand things go through your mind during the milliseconds between the realization that what you’re about to hear will change your life forever and receiving the rest of the message.

It was my father. He asked if I was sitting down.

My mother had just left a couple of hours earlier from a visit with my wife ...

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Not That Dirty of a Job

If you don’t know who Mike Rowe is, you should look him up online. Mr. Rowe represents what the average man in America used to resemble only a few short years ago.

He’s level-headed, smart, tries to avoid talking about politics or religion, and he is doing what he can to help other people.

Mike tried several different jobs (300 according to his website) between 2003 and 2012 when he starred in and worked on the TV show Dirty Jobs on The ...

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Life Lines

 

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy” 1980

I recently glanced at the calendar and discovered that somehow, I got old.

I don’t mind birthdays. As a matter of fact, having them is quite preferable to not having them. It’s just that most folks, regardless of our age, never feel old. We may be old, look old, and act old, but inside, we don’t think of ourselves as aged.

In my head, I’m still ...

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Are We There Yet?

Lying on the deck behind the backseat and staring upward through the rear glass of a Buick gave a kid the perfect view of the sky and clouds. A cloud could look like a bear one moment, and a crocodile the next.

Family road trips of the 1960s and 70s obviously did not have safety at the forefront, but boy, were the car rides memorable.

No family I knew had enough money to ride in airplanes to their destination. So we, and ...

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Funny Has Fallen

Comedians aren’t what they used to be.

This became quite obvious when my wife and I recently sat down to watch a 1969 episode of “The Dick Cavett Show.” A local channel is airing the program, which originally was on ABC’s late night schedule in the 60s and 70s, but you also can watch it on YouTube.

The guest on this particular broadcast was Groucho Marx.

During his career, which spanned over seven decades and ended just prior to his death in 1977 ...

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Write on Time

Writing a book takes way more work than I ever imagined.

But now, in addition to skydiving, working on the radio, and marrying a beautiful woman, I can check, “Wrote A Book” off my bucket list.

What makes one decide to publish a book? During the last several months as I spent days, nights and weekends working on taking my first stab at this, I asked myself the same question.

My friend Steve, who writes for a living, recently made the comment that ...

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The Heat Is On

After a recent meeting, a coworker mentioned that she and her family had bought a new home. Actually, it was new to them, but it was built in 1963 in what was then and is still now one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

What seemed like a typical workplace side conversation took a very positive turn when she mentioned that the appliances were all original. And they still worked.

No doubt, I’m a sucker for vintage anything, but I’ve always been ...

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