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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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 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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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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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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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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Since my wife retired, she does what many retirees do. Whatever she wants.
Like many families, our children and other family members are scattered across the country like dice across a table. Consequently, some of her time is spent flying or driving for visits in Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, and other destinations.
But, being gone from home requires the one thing that most wives dread. Leaving their husbands unattended. For whatever reason, women think that men are completely incapable of handling a few ...
Continue Reading →I had no idea how much one man had impacted my life until Chuck Berry died recently at age 90.
When I was 8 years old, I knew that I wanted to play Rock and Roll music. What I didn’t know was that Chuck almost single handedly gave Rock and Roll the roots of its sound and paved the road to success for all rock acts who would follow, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
I remember walking into Mike Hubrel’s ...
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“Where the heck is Tyler, Texas?”
My question didn’t surprise the guy on the other end of the line, and he chuckled.
It was early 1987. I was a 24-year-old disc jockey with a young family, and the job I had at the time just wasn’t working out. Shockingly, six months into the gig, the manager at the station reneged on my compensation package and cut my salary.
If you aren’t familiar with the radio business, being lied to and underpaid are hallmarks ...
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Suddenly, the TV show we were watching just stopped. We could get the cable channels, but the wifi stopped working.
This meant no Netflix, YouTube or Amazon Prime.
This moment made it clear to me how much the Internet is quickly becoming the main information conduit through which we receive our information and entertainment.
We had to wait a day before a tech could come to the house. As he tested the equipment, checked the box outside and made phone calls, I thought ...
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