Vacuum cleaners have come a long way. Too far, if you ask me.

My grandmother and all of her friends had a canister vacuum cleaner. It looked like a piece of rocket booster that NASA clipped off a Saturn 5 and gave to Electrolux. A motor was inserted to the inside, along with a collection bag, and a hose to the outside.

My grandmother and her friends would drag the canister vacuum around the house on its wheels and pick up all ...

We all have that one friend who never seems to age. You know, the one from high school who shows up at the class reunion and they look just like they did in 12th grade?

I have no idea what causes a person to look exactly the same as they did at age 18, even when they’re 60, but I didn’t get any of that. Matter of fact, I’m fairly certain that if I did have any of that, that kid ...

When I was nine, I got into a fight with a kid across the street. I don’t recall what started it, other than it was related to a 45 RPM copy of “Joy To The World” by Three Dog Night.

Only I could get into fisticuffs over a song by that title.

The song was a hit at the time in 1971 and the other young man and I were arguing when he threw a punch. So, I threw one back.

It was ...

Families didn’t used to take the volume of photographs that we do now. The cameras of decades ago made it cost prohibitive to shoot the number of pictures we do today.

Cell phones have made it simple and virtually free to take great photos. Other than the expense of the phone and a connection, we can take as many as we want.

Kodak once ruled the photo business. Almost all of the film, and many of the cameras America used were made ...

I thought the cast iron skillet my mom cooked virtually every meal in when I was a child was her favorite. I now know that she cooked with it because it was the only skillet she had.

That skillet represented how many families in small town America lived in the 50s and 60s – as simply and inexpensively as possible. The goal was to just get by.

Growing up in Arkansas as the child and grandchild of parents and grandparents who weathered ...

If there’s anything crueler than insomnia; it’s insomnia topped with a weakness for cooking gadgets sold on 3 a.m. infomercials.

Of course, I’m blessed with both.

Let’s face it. Cooking requires just two things: Something to cook, and heat.

So, why is it there are so many different ways to cook, and why do I feel it mandatory to own all of them?

The short answer is that I’m a sucker. I’m exactly the guy the people who make infomercials are looking for. Someone ...

Photo credit: eBay

Ironically, the year America celebrated its 200th birthday and independence from England, it was a British rock star who held the number one spot on the American rock album charts for 10 weeks.

Peter Frampton had released four albums with little success, but his fifth, a double disc called “Frampton Comes Alive,” exploded in sales. Frampton became one of the hottest concert tickets in the country.

He was so in demand, it would take two more years before he played ...

I was too small for football and too slow for track. I played catcher, but was a lousy hitter.

My dad had been the captain of his football team and had even been offered a football scholarship.

In my case, the apple fell pretty far from the tree.

However, there were two sports that I was good at. Neither of which my dad thought were manly.

Tennis and bowling.

I discovered tennis around age 12. My aunt and uncle had a summer cabin in Oklahoma. ...

“You’re 24-years-old. You really need to find a primary care doctor,” my wife said.

“But, there’s nothing wrong with me,” I responded. “Why go get something I don’t need?”

“You will one day,” she answered. “You need to establish a relationship with a single doctor who can take care of you for the rest of your life.”

It was the 1980s, and I was working, going to college, and raising a family. Her request just seemed like one more thing to add to ...

(photo: 1976 Ashdown High School Panther Eyes annual)

If you want to see what life was like and what a community was doing in any particular year, pull a copy of a high school annual from just about any hometown and look at the ads in the back.

Skip the senior portraits and the group photos of the Beta Club and the school choir. Look at the ads in the back of the annual.

That’s where the real story lies for how the ...