When I was a kid, I was the designated (fill in the blank).

If the TV antenna needed turning to pick up Star Trek or Dragnet, I was the designated antenna turner. If the channel needed changing, I was the designated remote control.

When the ubiquitous Ashdown, Arkansas, pine trees dropped their needles, I was the designated chief raker and burner.

Before cities stuck their noses into a family’s business and personal rights, you could burn needles and leaves in town, in your ...

One of my fears is that I’ll die and my family will throw out, or sell cheaply, my things that have value.

I went to an estate sale awhile back, and the grandkids of a family member were bagging up some remaining items and were going to throw them away. I asked if I could buy what was left and go through them later. They agreed.

Included in the bag of pencils, staplers, Tupperware, and other things that had once been part ...

Some days are just lucky ones. Such was the day I found a half-century old console stereo at an estate sale.

It isn’t exactly like the one my parents had, but it’s sure close.

Today, people stick in an earbud and listen to an endless supply of music on their phone via the Internet. But not so long ago we listened to one artist at a time on the family console stereo.

I start a new job soon and I was thinking about ...

This space is usually relegated to discussions centered on fried baloney sandwiches, classic TV shows, and the like. But today, I’m venturing into Dear Abby territory.

With apologies to Abby, Heloise, and Anne Landers, here we go.

No one actually wrote me for advice, but let’s pretend they did:

Dear John,

My Toyota Sasquatch isn’t very fuel efficient. My budget no longer allows for driving and buying food. What should I do?

Signed,

Hungry in Houston

Dear Hungry,

Have you tried hypermiling? It’s a trick you can do ...

Spring had arrived, but the heat and humidity had not. It was glorious.

If I’d had a convertible, I would have had the top down. But I didn’t. So I did the closest thing I could. I rolled the windows down before putting on my sunglasses.

The shifter was in the console. I engaged the transmission to drive and pulled onto the highway from my parents’ home. I drove to my job at the radio station.

Radio was king. To work in the ...

When I was a kid growing up in Ashdown, Arkansas, we picked up three channels. ABC, CBS, and NBC. PBS existed somewhere else near big cities. We’d heard of it, but didn’t pick it up off the antenna that was attached to the side of our house. This was the same antenna I was sent out to turn whenever the signal waned.

So, like most others growing up in 1960s America, kids dined on a steady TV diet of Hollywood’s version ...

The things people use on a daily basis mostly go unnoticed. A watch, knife, or Bible typically doesn’t have a lot of actual value. That is until the person who owned them is gone.

Then the item goes from being a tool to becoming a treasure.

Some of my most valued possessions wouldn’t bring much on the open market. But to me, they are priceless.

When they were given to me, I was grateful, but not appreciative.

I am now.

Growing up in Ashdown, Arkansas, ...

Buying a loaf of sliced bread is something we all take for granted these days, but it has been available commercially for less than 100 years. It was first sold in 1928.

By the 1960s, sliced bread was how most kids in America survived. Not wheat bread or whole grain bread. I’m talking about light bread.

Now, people in different parts of the country call it different things, but in Ashdown, Arkansas, everyone called it, ‘light bread.’

If you’re unsure of what I’m ...

Whoever designed the string-pull on a bag of charcoal needs to know they failed.

And it isn’t just bags of charcoal. It’s also large bags of kitty litter and pet food. You pull the string and it either snaps off in your hand or removes one of your fingers, but it never ever pulls evenly and removes the paper to let you get at what you’re after.

Let me put it this way. If this design were also used to try and ...

Driving my new 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass, I steered its long front end into the carpet and tile store.

Actually, the Olds wasn’t new, but it was new to me. The person I was about to meet was also new to me. His name was Dennis.

He worked full time as an Ashdown, Arkansas, city cop. The carpet store was a part-time gig. At least then it was part-time.

I also worked multiple jobs. Disc jockey, grocery store employee, and photographer. On this day ...