I hate pine needles.

Growing up in Arkansas will do that to you.

Pine trees are everywhere in Ashdown, Arkansas. They are pretty much everywhere throughout the Natural State.

Pine trees brought the paper mills, which brought the paper mill employees, which brought more homes, which brought more homeowners who didn’t want to rake up their own pine needles.

This was an opportunity for my buddies and me.

A yard full of pine needles prevented the grass from growing in the spring. And when you’re ...

There’s something about being scared. Some kids claim they don’t like it, but do. While a handful of other kids claim they don’t like it, and really don’t. I was the former. My sister was the latter.

In the small, redbrick house on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, the two of us knew that Halloween was on its way when three things happened. The decorations went up, our mom took us costume shopping at the Ben Franklin, and The Ghost and ...

You’d think that John Wayne said the word ‘pilgrim’ a lot. He did. But only in one movie.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the Duke said it 25 times. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) counted.

Every celebrity impersonator since Rich Little used the word pilgrim whenever they were imitating John Wayne. That made me think what you likely thought. That Wayne said the word a lot.

When I was a kid, I thought calling someone a pilgrim referred to that group ...

Peter Marshall: “Why do Hells Angels wear leather?”

Paul Lynde: “Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.”

If someone says, “Center square,” and you know what they mean, you grew up at one of the best times in TV history.

I’m talking about game shows, and specifically about Paul Lynde and The Hollywood Squares.

The Internet, for all of its bad facets, also offers some really great things. One stellar offering is the ability to travel back in time to when game shows ruled the daytime ...

As we left Ashdown, Arkansas, in my mom’s 1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited, my mom turned to my dad and asked, “Jimmy, are you sure we have enough money?”

He responded, “Well, Mary. If four hundred dollars isn’t enough to spend two weeks at Disney World, then we might as well stay home.”

It was 1973. That four hundred was to cover gas, hotels, meals, tickets to a relatively new Disney World, souvenirs, and incidentals. And it did. With some left over.

My ...

How we find what we like has changed. Not so long ago, to determine whether we enjoyed a specific musical group or movie, we did our own homework.

We didn’t go online to see what others thought of the newest music album by a popular artist or latest film by a favorite actor. There was no such thing as online. I’d doubt we’d have gone there if there had been.

We’d give a record album or film a try on our own.

Society ...

There are a few movies that have a big and lasting impact on you. For a 13-year-old kid from Ashdown, Arkansas, one of those was Jaws; the story of a great white shark that ate people off the coast of New England.

But it wasn’t just kids from southwest Arkansas who went to see that movie. For that matter, it wasn’t just kids. Everyone in the world, just about, went to see Jaws.

It was 1975, and no one had seen anything ...

I learned a lot from Scouting. Started as a Cub Scout, then joined Webelos, then the Boy Scouts.

Girls and making money took priority over my time around age 14, so I never made Eagle Scout. But what I learned up until then I still use today.

How to find a place to camp if you’re caught out in the woods. How to find fuel for and build a fire. How to forage and hunt for food. How to tie knots.

These were ...

The photo was taken quickly with little thought of its future impact. It was just one of the 36-count roll of Kodak color film that she’d bought for her vacation.

My sister was on a Colorado trip. She booked a trip on a vintage train that traveled on vintage tracks. As the conductor made a final walk of inspection, my sister leaned out a window and snapped the shot.

It was early morning. The mist of the mountain blended into the mist ...

Southerner’s are big on sopping. We like to sop our biscuits in lots of things.

There isn’t much that’s better than sopping a cathead biscuit in gravy. Especially if your mom made both.

My mother worked culinary magic in that tiny kitchen on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas. She made biscuits and gravy most meals.

We learned to sop at a young age. Sopping made sure we didn’t leave a drop of country goodness on our plates.

Gravy is good, but it wasn’t the ...