After my father was declared Missing in Action during World War II, my mother brought her infant son home from the hospital to live with my grandmother, Mama Ida, her sister Pearl, my mom’s sister Jodi and Uncle Sidney, Mama Ida’s brother. I suppose we would have been considered poor, but everybody pitched in and somehow, we got by. Growing up, I remember that every dinner began with a slab of … [Read more...]

We had corned beef, cabbage and black-eyed peas for our New Year’s supper. If that doesn’t bring us luck, what will?  Eating black eyed peas on New Year’s Day is a long-established symbol for good luck, stemming back to West African culture where the natives believed that little legumes not only brought prosperity, but also warded off evil spirits - and I’m all for that.An interesting story … [Read more...]

I cannot imagine being without a pocket knife. I have had one in my front pocket since I was six. Back then, we didn’t think of pocket knives as weapons. We treasured them as friends, able to accomplish a multitude of tasks. Some of my early memories go back to those first knives. I remember sitting in Billy Richmond’s front yard under two towering oak trees that delivered acorns the size of … [Read more...]

They introduced them to us in 5th grade. They were fountain pens – with real ink, with pointed tips and some sort of lever that sucked the ink up into the pen. We were supposed to learn to write with them in long hand and not smear our scribbles all over the paper. They might as well have asked me to walk across the high wire at a Ringling & Brothers Circus. Every day, I came home with ink … [Read more...]

In the 1950’s you could have sold Eskimos bags of ice. America was ready for anything. It was the age of Rock and Roll and fancy cars with big engines. It was a time of innocence, yet daring.  It was the time when television sets rolled into our living rooms and changed our lives.  It was also the time of Hula Hoops. Faster than the spread of Covid in a telephone booth, Hula Hoops swept … [Read more...]

Thanksgivings were always a big occasion for my family. In the earlier years, our family would load up our Pontiac sedan and leave the Wet Virginia mountains en route to Raleigh to spend the holiday with Mama Ida. In December, she came to our house for Christmas, but for Turkey Day, it was North Carolina. Mama Ida always had a huge spread with a big bird and all the sides, and I remember enjoying … [Read more...]

It was an upcoming Christmas in 1962 and there was only one thing on my wish list – a genuine bleeding madras shirt. Madras had popped up on the fashion scene as “the fabric to wear”, especially for wanna-be preppies. Madras referred to a city in India by that name where it had been traditionally worn for many years. Madras was a lightweight, cotton fabric generally woven into colorful plaid … [Read more...]

I read this week that the United States Mint will no longer produce pennies. On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the last of the 1-cent coins came off the assembly line. The penny’s demise was inevitable as it now costs nearly 4 cents to produce a single penny – and with fewer and fewer cash transactions, the penny is no longer in great demand. But it once was. There was a time when a penny would … [Read more...]

There was a time in America when drug stores didn’t occupy an entire city block. They weren’t part of corporate empires. This was a time when Boomers remember the local pharmacist as a family friend and a trusted adviser on most things medical. If a youngster in the family was running a high fever, the pharmacist would often meet a distressed mom or dad after closing hours to fill an important … [Read more...]

England has had kings on the throne for millenniums. Boomers know that America once had a king, too. But just one. Elvis Aron Pressley.  Born in a modest two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935, Elvis was truly America’s King, and his throne was any stage he occupied. Elvis Pressley was undeniably the most famous person of our generation. He was the King of Rock and … [Read more...]