February 1, 1967 was an exciting day. I had packed my Camaro convertible with a few pots and pans, some linens, my guitar and stereo and headed to Charlottesville, my new home. It was a beautiful day, in the low 80’s and I put the top down on my drive over. This Virginia is a special kind of place, I thought. Two weeks later it snowed 16-inches, but on that first day of February, all was … [Read more...]

  My happy place? It’s on a dock, any dock or pier with water nearby. I can spend hours and hours on a dock and it’s as if time stand still. I suppose it all goes back to my early experiences as a ten-year-old boy on Uncle’s Sidney’s pier on Bogue Sound, across from Atlantic Beach. Uncle Sidney had built the pier by himself, no easy task for a man with a wooden leg. He had lost his … [Read more...]

This week, I had a chance to correspond with an old friend from Lewisburg, Bill Shaver. Bill and I go back a long way. Bill was the athlete, an excellent pitcher who could bring the heat while I had to give it all I had to make a throw from third to first. Bill hit homers, I hit singles. Bill and I played basketball together and took various trips to Myrtle Beach, but one thing that stands out … [Read more...]

On October 8, 1956, I was in 7th grade. At the 2 PM bell, they let students out of their classrooms and those who were interested assembled on chairs in the auditorium. A television set was on. The picture was a little fuzzy, but it was Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium.  The Dodgers and Yankees. Vin Scully and Mel Allen were the announcers. Babe Pinelli was the ump behind home plate … [Read more...]

In 1983, my Dad gave me an English Setter puppy out of Walter, a great setter and family pet. We named him Hunter. But this was the skitziest dog I had ever seen. He was super-hyper and deathly afraid of the trash men who used to pick up our trash cans from the back deck. I thought he would be gun shy for sure and he was so wild when you let him go, I wondered if I would ever see him again if I … [Read more...]

Not many Boomers were able to avoid the scourge of hand-me-down’s – clothes and shoes passed down from older brothers or sisters, or from one family to another. Most Boomer parents were children of the depression, and recycling was a way of life, not a fashion statement. Moms were even known to cut off buttons from old shirts and coats, so you know they were eager for gently used clothing in good … [Read more...]

  It was a typical morning on the farm. The four farmhands, Glen Allen and Richard McClung, Ben Benjamin and I walked through the hen houses to feed, water and remove the young pullets that didn’t make it through the night. Next, we were off to the lower pastures to sink a few post holes. There was always something to do on  Houston Moore’s cattle farm in Lewisburg and this day would bring … [Read more...]

The modern generation is accustomed to innovation. In recent years, they have seen voice-activated television sets, we have cars that run on batteries, transplant surgeries that take less than an hour, drone delivered packages and a phone - small enough for a shirt pocket - that will take videos, guide travelers, spit out data like a water fountain and – yes – it’s a phone. For our generation, … [Read more...]

Boomers recall lots of childhood memories. Some good and some not so good. One of those not-so-good memories for me was when I got “chiggered.” I was spending a week at Grandma Brewer’s, in Clemmons, NC, an annual event soon after school let out. My father, who was killed in World War II, had 8 living brothers and sisters and I was often passed around from Brewer to Brewer as I visited. On … [Read more...]

  A Chapel Hill legend died in 2007 – The Rams Head Rathskeller, fondly referred to as “The Rat.” The Rathskeller was a 4,800 square foot restaurant located beneath Franklin Street, Carolina’s version of The Corner at UVA. To access The Rat, you walked down steep concrete stairs off Franklin Street through a place called Amber Alley. At the bottom, you waited and waited and waited. … [Read more...]