When you grow up with one car and no phone, trips to water parks usually aren’t on the summer agenda.

Two reasons. Budgets were tight, and there were no water parks in Ashdown, Arkansas.

Unless you count one of the numerous livestock ponds in the area. And those weren’t typically recommended for snorkeling.

But that didn’t mean our moms didn’t see to it that we had a day or two for aquatic recreation. On the contrary. Fun in the sun was as close ...

People use different ways to learn to read. Some folks use the vowels and consonants method. Others memorize how the words look.

I used both, but I had a secret weapon many didn’t know about.

Comic books.

While most kids were having, “Fun with Dick and Jane,” I was having a blast with Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four.

It started when my dad came home one day with a stack of comic books he’d picked up for a quarter at a garage sale.

At the ...

Things were better in the old days back in Ashdown, Arkansas.

Because of that, I’m building a room in our house with almost all vintage items.

I’m calling it, “The Retro Room.”

I never thought I’d hear anyone else besides my dad and grandfather say that. But now I’m saying it.

Things were made better in the old days.

Cars used to be better. Furniture used to be better. Appliances used to be better.

Show me one thing today that’s made with better quality and durability.

I’ll ...

America really is The Land of Opportunity. Even if there’s only one opportunity, and that opportunity is cutting the grass.

Ashdown, Arkansas, was a pretty typical small American town in the 1960s and 1970s.

Kids weren’t just handed things. If we wanted something, we were told to work for it.

At my house that was the case. It was also the case at the homes of all of my friends.

Want a new stereo? Go make some money. Want a new bicycle? Get a ...

In the South, we believed with all of our hearts what we were told when we were children.

Even if it was wrong.

In the 1960s, the RCA color console TV my family had on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, could make you go blind.

It could if you believed what our mom told us.

Mom: “Scoot back from that television. If you sit too close, it’ll make your eyes stick on blurry, and eventually, you’ll go blind.”

Me: “Really? Cool.”

Never mind the fact that ...

Back in the 60s, some American college kids protested the Vietnam War, but mostly, they conducted sit-ins. Few protests were violent.

Other American college kids would have contests to see how many of them they could cram into a Volkswagen.

Today, college kids see how much trouble they can cause by rioting on campus.

While the Volkswagen college kids were smashing up against each other in a Beetle, parents were cramming as many kids as they could into a Ford Country Squire or ...

As a child growing up in Ashdown, Arkansas, we had two main grocery stores. Shur-Way and Piggly Wiggly. Or as my dad called it, “the Hoggly Woggly.”

And a trip to the store was like each TV commercial had come to life.

Advertising agencies at the time were very good at what they did. Think about how much artful effort goes into tying elves to cookies, a talking fish to tuna, and a tiger to sugar-drenched corn flakes.

And then convincing kids to ...

My wife and I are scheduled for an Alaskan cruise in the fall. By all accounts, it’s something to which we should look forward.

I’ve been told the same thing about other trips, including a Vegas excursion that included a stay at a strip motel that still had beds that took quarters.

Unfortunately, my wife held little interest for a strip motel with quarter-driven beds, so that’s an experience still to be had.

That said, the Alaskan cruise seems to hold more promise.

Except ...

It isn’t fair that some people never seem to age. Or that others age early.

We all had that one kid in our class who had a baby face when we were children, and they still do.

Then, there was the kid in the class who appeared to be in the 16th grade from the third grade on. The beard and mustache is what always threw people off.

And the kid who looked young all the way from when they were young, up ...

Recently, I saw something I haven’t seen in many years. A young man driving a car he was fixing up.

It was an older Mustang. By older I mean a 90’s model.

The car had spots of primer, there were a few dents, and the exhaust system appeared to be loose.

But this young man was driving with the top down, smiling as he went.

It took me back 50 years.

My first car was a Mustang. A 1966 model; white with red interior. The ...