I don’t exactly recall when I moved from the little table to the big table during the holidays. But I thought I had arrived.

Maybe you started out at the big table, but I didn’t. In my family, it was a right of passage. Usually, your promotion from a table full of kids to the place where the grownups ate occurred when you graduated high school, went to college, got married or all of the above.

Our family’s big table was wooden ...

I never expected to do most of the things I’ve done in my life. Radio announcer, public relations, healthcare, law enforcement, and working for charities.

You’re supposed to tell The Lord that if he’ll open a door for you, you’ll walk through it. He leads, you follow.

But I haven’t always done that. Most of the jobs I mentioned were ones I sought out.

When you’re young, you think you’re in control. Of everything.

By the time you figure out that you were never ...

He almost didn’t get it. It took him three years to wear the man down, but my dad finally talked him into selling the truck.

It wasn’t a common pickup. It was long and boxy. That likely made it even more desirable to my dad.

The truck was a small Toyota long bed with a four-cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. Many of those models had a stick shift and a six-cylinder.

Think Marty McFly’s tricked out truck in “Back To The Future.”

The ...

My mom turned off her landline.

For 50 years, my parents had the same number.

898-2446.

Now, it’s gone.

“Mom, did you get rid of the landline?” I asked.

“Yes, they wanted an extra $38 a month to keep it. I don’t need it since I have a cell phone,” she answered.

It was a business decision. A simple, not much thought, easy to make, logical business decision.

For me, it was a feeling of loss.

I would never again call the number that thousands of times I ...

I wasn’t sure whose idea Daylight savings time (DST) was, so I looked it up.

Most folks think it was Ben Franklin, but it wasn’t.

It was a New Zealand entomologist named George Hudson. He recommended it in his country long after Ben had left us.

I was hoping that I could hunt George down and ask him to call it off, but I waited too long. He died in 1946.

Good old Mr. Hudson came up with the concept in 1895. But we ...

It wasn’t until we took our seats in the auditorium in Shreveport that it hit me.

We were sitting in the home of the old Louisiana Hayride.

The Hayride was broadcast from the Municipal Auditorium on radio station KWKH from the 1940s until the early 1960s.

Many artists performed at the Hayride as a means of getting noticed by WSM Radio in Nashville – home of The Grand Ole Opry.

Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Johnny Horton, and hundreds of others ...

I’m not sure when they started charging for air at gas stations, but I firmly believe that collusion was involved.

When the local filling station was owned by a local family, you were never charged to fill up a low tire, or for that matter, water for the radiator or most anything else besides the gasoline.

And you didn’t even have to buy gasoline to get free air and water. If the service station attendant saw that you were in trouble and ...

The fridge. Frigerator. Some even called it, “The Frigidaire.” A few decades ago it had many names.

Growing up, my family called it the “ice box,” even though it was an old term.

Today most of us refer to the kitchen appliance where we keep cold things as the refrigerator.

But an electrical appliance doesn’t work without electricity. And until the late 1940s, electricity wasn’t an option where my parents were raised. It just wasn’t available.

So, prior to having an electric refrigerator, you ...

I’d hit the wall after hours of moving furniture. I couldn’t go any longer and had to sit down. I’m no spring chicken and my back was letting me know it.

Moving a family member who has over 60 years of stuff takes awhile, so even if you sit a spell you really need to keep the momentum going. If you don’t, it’s likely you’ll decide you’re done for the day. And that wasn’t a luxury I had.

What I needed was ...

I once asked my father how old you have to be before you understand women. His response was, “I give up. How old?”

I have relatives and friends in all parts of the country. But Southern women have a way of doing things that are just baffling to men.

In the South, women clean their house before the housekeeper arrives.

Wife: “Oh, my gosh! I forgot. The cleaning lady is coming today. Quick, get up at help me clean the house!”

Husband: “But she’s ...