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...]

There is a program streaming now on Netflix – Queen’s Gambit.  It is a fictional account of a young orphaned girl who becomes a brilliant chess player. If you have Netflix, it’s a must-watch series. If you don’t have Netflix, it’s a good reason to sign up. Nancy and I watched each episode, spell bound, sometimes 3 episodes in a single evening. It reminded me of the chess mania that swept this … [Read more...]

My youngest daughter was always something of a tomboy. She tagged along with me on dove hunts and delighted in floating and fishing the James River. When she was in 5th grade, a fellow in the local Jaycee’s approached me about sponsoring a youth BB gun team. “Sure I’ll buy them a gun,” I said.  Daisy made some special target air rifles that were deadly accurate at 5 meters, and they cost about … [Read more...]

I was 5 when my family moved from Pittsburg to Beckley, West Virginia and I immediately made friends with a 6 year-old boy across the street – Billy Richmond. Billy and I had countless imaginary games of Army, Navy and Air Force. A hill on a vacant lot became a German fortified position we had to capture; an old log behind Billy’s house was a pretend submarine; and a big apple tree in a neighbor’s … [Read more...]

Some like to fish. Some could care less. I was born to fish. Some of my earliest recollections are of the old “Henry” comic strip. Henry was forever fishing and carrying stringers of big fish that he caught. I saw those cartoons and stared in envy. How I wanted to catch fish like those. I didn’t get much chance to fish until my family moved to Beckley, WV when I was about 5 years … [Read more...]