Breaker, Breaker Good Buddy

Before there was Facebook, there was the CB radio. It was how Americans talked to each other.

During a few years in the 1970s, the CB radio, short for citizens band, was about as big as social media is today. We didn’t need the 10 o’clock news to tell us what was going on, we had each other. By purchasing a base radio for your home or a mobile radio for your vehicle, you could key the mic and talk to ...

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Not By Bread Alone

I was almost home from a very long drive when I saw the first estate sale sign. Exhausted, I paused for a moment trying to decide whether to turn or keep going.

That tells you how tired I was since I almost never pass up an estate sale.

I made the turn and followed the first sign to the second, then the third, finally arriving at the address. But, there was no sign in front of the house. It was 3 in ...

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Riding Like The Wind

The summer of 1980 was one of the hottest I recall.

The windows were down in my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass. They were always down in the summer. I couldn’t afford to fix the air conditioner. But that summer was particularly brutal.

When I was young and broke, the summer heat was simply a fact life.

But, music? Music was life.

I was in college and had a pretty girl who allowed me to call her my girlfriend. The local radio station gave me the ...

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Scones And Other Nonsense

It’s remarkable how much people will pay for food that sounds fancy.

Take scones for example. Please, take them. All of them.

If you go into one of those fancy coffee shops that charges the same price for a drink as I pay for an oil change, you often will be asked if you’d like a scone to go with your order.

Don’t do it. It’s a trick.

The first time I was offered a scone, I expected something that exploded when I tasted ...

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The Fix Was In

Mr. Harless’ TV and radio repair shop wasn’t on Main Street, but it wasn’t far from it.

The hardware store and clothing shops took up most of the main drag through my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas.

But, if you turned east off of Highway 71 on the street just before the city’s sole flashing red light, you’d find Mr. Harless’ fix-it shop.

He often was sitting with his back to the window as he worked.

In the 1960s, television was still fairly new ...

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Getting The Band Back Together

 

 

There’s still a debate over whether we spelled it “TRAX,” or “TRAXX.” What’s not in doubt is that it was a high school rock band that five friends from the Texarkana area played in during the late 1970’s.

What’s also not debated is that after 40 years, those same friends rejoined for one night to play some of the same tunes they had last played when Jimmy Carter was president.

“So, I’ll be back in Texarkana in about six months for my ...

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Driving Down Memory Lane

 

Seeing a classic or antique car always reminds me of someone. That someone is most often my father.

“That’s a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air,” my father would say. “Most people preferred the 1957, but I never understood why. The ‘55 is a much prettier car.”

He was right.

Cars are a connection to our past. I can think of no other item that we buy, use and then sell, that lingers with fondness in our minds.

I’m not ...

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A Fab Four Days

“Hello, my name is Clark Gable,” said the man sitting next to me in the airport.

I turned to greet him. His Master’s hat from Augusta was the second thing that caught my attention – the first, of course, was his name.

As we shook hands, I’m sure I had the same look on my face that he’d seen many times during his seven or eight decades on the planet.

I didn’t bring up Gone ...

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On The Record

There are certain items that remind me of my grandparents. Some items I see, others I inherited.

Formica Dinette sets and tabletop radios are on that list.

It takes just a glance at something in the background of a television show or something at a flea market, garage sale, or antique shop, to send me way back in my memory banks.

As a younger person, you associate specific items with previous generations. But, it would seem that now that I’m the grandfather, some ...

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Gaming The System

One of the biggest mistakes you could make when I was growing up was to tell your parents that you were bored.

The minute you uttered those words, you knew that the next several hours would be filled with manual labor.

Growing up in a world with just three TV channels, my sister, cousins, friends and I had to find ways to amuse ourselves. Oftentimes, we relied on the contents of a stack of boxes that sat inside a bookcase.

Those boxes contained ...

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