And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

Advertising can be traced back to the earliest parts of recorded civilization. The Ancient Egyptians used advertising on papyrus for messages related to sales.

But, in my opinion, the pinnacle of ads and advertising mascots occurred between the early 1960s and the late 1970s.

Dinah Shore invited us to “See the USA in a Chevrolet,” and Miller Beer told us that, “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer.”

The high caliber concept development of Speedy Alka Seltzer, Charlie Tuna, and Tony ...

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The Picture Shows

It was 50-cents to get in. The additional 50-cents my mom gave me covered the cost of popcorn and a Coke, plus more if I wanted a giant dill pickle.

Williams Theater was an institution in my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas. Wedged between the store that sold Buster Brown shoes and Piggly Wiggly, generations of residents walked through its doors to enjoy an afternoon or evening away from their cares.

The first girl I ever went steady with, I met there.

The family ...

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The Table of Wisdom

 

The clanking of the plates and silverware was constant. The waitress smiled as she refilled the diner’s coffee cups. She laughed at the old men’s jokes. Jokes she’d heard many times before, but she always laughed. Her laughter made the men feel good, and it didn’t hurt her tips.

The cigarette smoke hovered in a thick haze under the ceiling tiles. After filling and refilling cups, she emptied their ashtrays.

This went on in constant repetition. So reliably that you could exit ...

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The TV Guide

There were three TV channels when I was a kid. The signals of two of them were reliable. The third was iffy. If there was a storm, CBS probably wasn’t going to have a picture.

Nestled in the southwest corner of Arkansas, my hometown was not near any of the television towers. Radio stations were plentiful, but the closest television stations were in Shreveport. Little Rock and Dallas had stations, but the signals didn’t reach us.

So, we subsisted ...

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Happy Holidaze

 

The holidays all run together now. I don’t mean literally, I mean at the store.

Used to be, when you went into a Ben Franklin 5 & 10, Western Auto, Otasco, or Sears, you knew what holiday it was.

If it was almost Halloween, the appropriate decorations, costumes, and candy were on the shelf. My mom would take my sister and me to the store and we’d pick out a costume and then patiently wait for October 31 to roll around so ...

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Bacon

I was rummaging through the freezer when something caught my eye. Bacon.

But, this wasn’t just any bacon, this was fully-cooked bacon.

I reached into the door of the freezer and removed the smaller-than-normal package. I read the label. It said that it did not require refrigeration or freezing. So, this bacon presumably could last forever, putting it in the same class as Hostess Twinkies and Velveeta.

I’m guessing that my wife put this bacon in the freezer out of habit.

So, how was ...

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I’ll Do It Myself

I understand that people have to make a living, but sometimes, the markup on repair services borders on ridiculous.

Case in point: I was recently walking on the treadmill, when it suddenly just stopped.

Now, I know that this is shocking, but try to get past the part about me being on a treadmill and focus on the rest of the story.

We bought a state-of-the-art treadmill from Sears back in 2002. The guy sold me this newfangled piece of exercise equipment that ...

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I Get Mail

 

When I began jotting down my thoughts each week back in 2013, I didn’t plan on what started out as a blog meant to document my life, becoming a newspaper column.

This blog also appears as a weekly column in the Tyler Morning Telegraph and The Little River News.

The first is near where I live in East Texas, and the other is in my hometown of Ashdown, Arkansas.

However, I’m glad that it did. Each newspaper was kind enough to ...

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Write on Time

Writing a book takes way more work than I ever imagined.

But now, in addition to skydiving, working on the radio, and marrying a beautiful woman, I can check, “Wrote A Book” off my bucket list.

What makes one decide to publish a book? During the last several months as I spent days, nights and weekends working on taking my first stab at this, I asked myself the same question.

My friend Steve, who writes for a living, recently made the comment that ...

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In A Class Of Our Own

Einstein’s theory of relativity includes something called “Time Dilation.”

I’m about as far from being a scientist as one can possibly be, but the way that I understand time dilation, two clocks show different times when they’re affected by gravity or velocity. A clock on earth would move faster than one in orbit. The faster you go, the slower time moves.

Supposedly, this theory has been proven through multiple tests, but my own test also bears out his results.

As evidence, I present ...

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