Summer is fast approaching, meaning modern children will be busier than ever with activities galore. It’s mind boggling to try and appreciate all the things in store for today’s kids. It wasn’t always like that. Boomers look back and remember that when school let out, if you didn’t play Little League baseball, you were sentenced to a summer of Scrabble, Clue and Monopoly games. Unless, … [Read more...]
The Golden Age of Fine Clothing
Last Sunday, the preacher and I were the only men in Church with a coat and a tie. Others wore sport shirts, knit shirts and maybe their best jeans. I am old school. I believe in dressing for respect of the occasion. I don’t wear a baseball cap to a nice restaurant, and I consider blue jeans to be work clothes, I don’t care how much they cost. I had moved to Charlottesville on the first day … [Read more...]
Blowin’ In The Wind
We were driving from Lewisburg, WV to enroll at UNC in Chapel Hill on a September day in 1962 when I first heard the group. The song was “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” sung by a group called Peter, Paul and Mary. Boomers grew up with this trio, pioneers in folk music, which gained steam in the 1960s. To many, folk music meant protests and flower children. To me, it meant some of … [Read more...]
Old Family Recipes: Genuine Treasures
Some of the greatest treasures we have are old family recipes, traditions passed from one generation to the next. Many of these old recipes can date back a hundred years and more. They connect us to our past. My wife Nancy has accumulated a thick volume of these priceless wonders. Nancy married into a family of incredible cooks. Not me. All I could cook when we first married were hamburgers, … [Read more...]
The Days of Pegged Pants
“Hurry son! You’ll be late for school!” “I’m trying Mom. I can’t get my pants on. I think the pants legs shrunk!” Such might have been a morning conversation in any number of homes in the 1950’s. That’s because a certain fad called pegged pants swept all of Boomer-hood, causing both young men and women to truly struggle to get their pants on. Pegged pants had their origins when … [Read more...]
Go Fly a Kite
Boomer kids divided everything into months. January was noted for New Year’s Day and celebrations before heading back to school. February was cold, which meant snow, which meant school closings, which meant tearing down hillsides in a genuine Flexible Flyer sled and hoping for the best. April had Easter egg hunts. May meant school picnics and Little League tryouts. June was vacation time, then the … [Read more...]
Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic
I heard recently that some of the schools were adding sensitivity training to mathematics. “Five plus five is usually ten. How do you feel about that?” When Boomers were in school, there was nothing sensitive about the three R’s - Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic. We also read lots of American history, and in our books, Americans were the good guys. Nathan Hale, Paul Revere, George … [Read more...]
Destination Jamaica
It was our anniversary and we wanted to get away for a few days. We wanted someplace warm and inviting, maybe some place we had never been. How about Jamaica? Why not? We drove to Richmond on a Wednesday night as our flight to Miami left the next morning at 6-ish and we were supposed to be at the airport for international flights three hours early. We landed in Miami in less than three … [Read more...]
George Washington’s Real Birthday
George Washington was born on February 22, not the entire fourth week of February. His birthday was also not clustered among the birthdays of other presidents. His birthday was unique and once a special event. I moved to Charlottesville on Feb. 1, 1967. I had accepted a position as Men’s Buyer at Leggett Barracks Road. The new store was trying to get a foothold in selling better … [Read more...]
That and a Dime…
There was an old saying, “That and a dime will buy you a cup of coffee.” Whatever “That” was had no value, but a cup of coffee cost a dime, always a dime. Well, not anymore. A small cup of coffee at Starbucks runs about $2.95. When you add sales tax and meals tax. It’s pushing $3.50 a cup – for a cup of coffee! The fancy brews such as Macchiatos, Mochas, Lattes, Espresso, Cappuccino, and … [Read more...]
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