I poured myself a bowl of cereal the other day and immediately turned the box around to read the back cover. Instead of a puzzle, a game or the adventures of some cartoon character, I read only about fiber, saturated fats, calories, various vitamins, niacins, calciums and sugar content. According to the backs of modern boxes, cereals today are heart-healthy, gluten free, whole grain, … [Read more...]

There are some voices that truly stand out in our past. Boomers look back and remember Edward R. Murrow, Arthur Godfrey, Jack Benny, Walter Cronkite, John Cameron Swayze, Orson Welles, Paul Harvey, Mae West and Groucho Marx as among those voices which needed no introduction. When they spoke, you knew who they were. And there is one more. Howard Cosell, the greatest sports commentator of all … [Read more...]

Hey kids! What time is it? Breathes there a Boomer who doesn’t know the answer to that question? If it was Buffalo Bob Smith asking, and it was a weekday afternoon on NBC in the 1950’s, it was most definitely “Howdy Doody time.” Boomers remember the Howdy Doody Show as much for the quality of life during those years as for the quality of this popular children’s program. It was a time of … [Read more...]

I gave Daddy a thermos one year for Christmas. It was a heavy duty thermos, like you’d see in a construction worker’s lunchbox. It was one of Daddy’s favorite gifts ever. That thermos, even today, brings back lots of great memories because it went with us on most of our hunting trips throughout the years. A typical hunt during the Christmas vacation found us leaving the house early in the … [Read more...]

Every Christmas, my Aunt Lena made molasses cookies. When I was at Carolina, she would send me a tin of her homemade sugar cookies along with some molasses cookies. I kept them hidden from my suite mates so I could have them all to myself. Molasses cookies originated among the members of the Moravian Church. The Moravians are among the oldest Protestant denominations dating back to 15th century. … [Read more...]

Toys have certainly changed since I was a boy. Everything is electronic today – and expensive. I was thinking back about Christmas toys I have received over the years and one of the first I can remember was a Slinky. Slinkies were wire coils that – if you started them off just right – would work their way down a flight of stairs. I expect I sent my Slinky down Mama Ida’s stairs a thousand times … [Read more...]

They play Christmas music all day, every day on Z 95.1, and that’s the station I tune in. One song that plays often throughout the day is "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” The song was written in 1951 by Meredith Wilson and was recorded by many artists including Perry Como, The Fontane Sisters, Bing Crosby and more recently, Michael Bublé. The first stanza goes like … [Read more...]

I was in Sam’s this week and walked by the electronics displays. They had a 40-inch flat screen TV for $159, a Smart TV at that. Boy have times changed. Thinking back, I remember the first TV my family bought. It was in 1954 and folks were just starting to get TVs in their homes. Finally, the day came. The furniture store delivered a 24-inch Sylvania table-top TV, black and white of course. As … [Read more...]

November 11th, Veterans’ Day,  has come and gone, but there was a time when November 11th was my favorite day of the year. More so than Christmas, more than Thanksgiving, even more than my birthday was November 11th - Veteran’s Day. Veteran’s Day was always a special day for me because my father, James E. Brewer, was a veteran who lost his life in WW II. My step-dad, Daddy George, was also a … [Read more...]

I was blessed to come from large families. My mother’s mother, Mama Ida, had a total of five brothers and sisters and she married into a family of six siblings. My father, James Brewer, was the youngest of 10 children, so I had my share of aunts and uncles. If not my favorite uncle, Uncle Dennis Brewer was certainly right up there near the top and he was easily the most interesting. Uncle … [Read more...]