Tomorrow is Fourth of July and there will be fireworks – serious fireworks, but you’re not supposed to have any in Virginia. That’s because our state would trust you with a 3,000 pound Ferrari that will do 250 miles an hour in about 10 seconds, but they think you might hurt yourself with a bottle rocket. So we can buy things that smoke and sizzle but nothing that leaves the ground. If it’s fun, … [Read more...]

I can’t tell you how many five dollar checks I wrote during my years at UNC.  All told, they might have stacked three feet high. Writing small checks was simply a way of life in the sixties. For one, we didn’t have charge cards. There were a few gasoline charge cards around, but VISA had yet to make an appearance, so if we needed money, we wrote checks. I can recall writing one-dollar checks … [Read more...]

Chicken is good. Hambone is sweet. Possum meat is mighty, mighty fine. But give me, oh give me, I really wish you would That watermelon hanging on the vine   My Daddy used to sing that song when I was a boy. I don’t know if it was an actual, recorded song, or something he just made up, but he sang it frequently around the house, particularly in summer and particularly … [Read more...]

In 1955, Lewisburg, WV was a painted city by Norman Rockwell, or could have been. Main Street was pretty much it – three blocks or so with a half dozen businesses per block. There were the usual stores – a five and dime, a barbershop, a bank, a savings and loan, some clothing stores, a jewelry store, two pharmacies, a couple small department stores, a record shop, a doughnut shop and Zelda’s … [Read more...]

Remembering people in your life that have made a difference. I can think of one who truly stands out. His name was Arie D. Bestebreurtje. We called him Dr. B. From Holland,  Dr. B was an Olympic speed skater, an alternate on the Dutch Speed Skating Team at the 1936 games. A law school graduate, Dr. B escaped Nazi occupation at the start of the war, reached England and joined the exiled … [Read more...]

  As those of us old enough to remember “polio” look back on our lives, it’s not so much the events that we recall, but the people. One of those people in my life was Uncle Jim. He was James Benjamin Lawrence and dated and then married my Aunt Jody. Jody was like my big sister. She was just ten years older and was there when I came home as a newborn baby from Rex Hospital in Raleigh, … [Read more...]

Sunday dinner was over and Brad Stuart was outside. He had rounded up enough kids for a 4-on-a-side baseball game. But I couldn’t play. Yet. I had to do dishes. Mom had used every pot and pan in the kitchen to fry her chicken, bake her homemade yeast rolls, boil and mash potatoes, fix two bowls of vegetables and cook a chocolate cake. It was a great Sunday dinner (we called a fancy lunch … [Read more...]

  Contrary to Jimmy Dugan’s famous line in the movie, A League of Their Own, there is crying in baseball. I for one am shedding tears. It is April and there are no games. Clayton Kershaw is in his back yard tossing Nerf Balls with his kids. Mike Trout swats at house flies these days, not high fastballs. How is it that there is no baseball? Baseball was my first love. I remember … [Read more...]

  I suppose the lives of most Boomers can be measured by the pets we owned, and my family had some doozies. At Easter, I recall getting baby chickens and baby ducks – dyed in pastel colors – in our Easter baskets. It was a right of passage and there was no such thing as PETA. We just had pet birds for a spell. With ducks, when they lost their dyed colors and the cute factor, it was … [Read more...]

  Last weekend, Nancy and I went on a little Sunday Drive. We hopped in the car, drove down to Eltzroth & Thompson for some plants, then headed across the mountain via I-64 to Greenville and a visit to Springdale Gardens where we picked up a couple bullfrog tadpoles and some water garden accessories. On the way home, we took the long route along Rt. 250. We saw redbuds in bloom, pink … [Read more...]