At 87 years of age, chances are that Johnny Mathis, a millionaire many times over, is playing shuffleboard at his Florida mansion. Not so. Last Sunday night, Johnny Mathis performed in Charlottesville at the Paramount Theater, and Nancy and I joined a packed house of devoted fans who marveled at his still-amazing voice. Johnny Mathis is a living legend. There were a few young people in … [Read more...]

We had lived in Lewisburg, WV for a year and by now I was becoming acclimated to the friendly little city. I had made lots of friends, I shot my first quail with a .410 shotgun and was fortunate to be young and alive in one of the greatest years of all time – 1956. In 1956, things didn’t cost much. The average price for a new house was $11,700, the average monthly rent was $88, a gallon of gas … [Read more...]

Travel with me back in time to 1954. You are a school kid, just home from class. The first thing you do? Make a pitcher of Kool-Aid. Boy, did we ever drink the Kool-Aid in those days. The powder form of the sweet, fruit-based drink was invented in 1927, but it wasn’t until the 1950’s that Kool-Aid took off.  General Foods bought the brand in 1953 and began advertising on TV. They introduced a … [Read more...]

Thomas Wolfe says you can’t go home again. What once was is no longer. Things change. Nothing stays the same. Except for one thing. Jim’s Drive-In in Lewisburg, WV, my hometown. I’ve written about Jim’s Drive-In many times because it was such a large part of my youth and growing up. My family discovered the joys of the iconic drive-in soon after we moved to Lewisburg. When Daddy was out of town … [Read more...]

I bought some Texas Gulf Shrimp from Kroger’s this week, on special at $9.99 a pound. They were large and sweet and juicy, and we really enjoyed them on a bed of lettuce as a seafood salad. However, I happen to remember shrimp priced at 59c a pound, and my dad thought that was outrageous. I was about 11 or 12 and we were on vacation in Morehead City, NC where my Aunt Anne had a cottage on … [Read more...]

  Most people these days won’t stoop down to pick up a penny in the parking lot and they usually donate any extra pennies to the cup beside the cash register. Some even suggest doing away with pennies entirely since they are considered a nuisance. But Boomers didn’t consider a penny a nuisance. To us they were nuggets of gold and what could we ever do with a couple shiny pennies. After … [Read more...]

    Somewhere around 1963, these polo shirts began to make their mark. The frat guys and preppies were all wearing them – knit shirts with little alligators embroidered on the chest. The coolest guys wore them with collars up, no socks, chino pants and a pair of Bass Weejuns, of course. It was the ultimate preppie uniform. I had to have one of these alligator shirts. Julian’s … [Read more...]

  You could hear him coming a block away - the engine chugging on the old, white truck and hundreds of glass bottles clinking inside. He was the milkman. Believe it or not, there was a time when you didn’t go to the store to buy milk. Rather, the milk came to you in the milkman’s truck. In the 1950’s and 60’s, most families engaged the services of the local milkman. With a note left in … [Read more...]

  Today, it’s hard to imagine a world without plastics. But plastic products really hit their stride in America after World War II. Before that, the war machine consumed many of the organic materials necessary to create plastic. In the 1950’s, plastics went viral. In the late 1950’s, a product called a practice golf ball hit the store shelves. It was a small, white plastic sphere … [Read more...]

  How do young people meet these days? There are no drive-ins! Not only are there no more drive -in movies, there are no drive-in restaurants. No place to circle the parking lot looking for girls – or boys. Boomers look back nostalgically at the days when a young lady called a carhop would take your order for a frosted mug of A & W root beer and an order of fries. You gave her two … [Read more...]