His name was Freddie Arnold. He was sent by heaven to save a young Boomer from a life dominated by girls. He was my first, best friend. The summer before I would start third grade in Beckley, WV, my family moved across town. I would be in a new school and in a new neighborhood. The day the movers were unloading our furniture, a bolt of lightning hit the refrigerator one of the men was … [Read more...]

  A number of years ago,  I discovered coupons. The grocery stores began putting the coupons in their ads and one day I cut out a few. It was like the first roll of dice to an addicted gambler in Las Vegas. I was hooked – saving 10 cents here and 20 cents there. Our limited shelf space became overloaded. “What are these three boxes of Meow Mix doing in the cabinet,” my wife, Nancy, asked. “I … [Read more...]

There was a time when Americans eagerly greeted a door-to-door salesman. He was welcomed into the home for a chat and maybe a cup of coffee – sometimes a bite of lunch. The well-respected visitor asked about the family and any news in the neighborhood, and then opened his case of wares. Most were brushes. He was, after all, The Fuller Brush Man The Fuller Brush Man was a consummate … [Read more...]

There is now an app for just about everything on the planet. But oddly, there is not an App for Boomers - a complete listing of all the perils with which we might contend. I suppose the Good Lord figured that at this stage of our lives we’d have better sense than to do certain things – like play touch football with children and grandchildren. On a recent Thanksgiving, I did. And I’m “thank-ful” to … [Read more...]

  Born on a Mountaintop in Tennessee Greenest State in the Land of the Free Raised in the Woods so he Knew Every Tree Kilt him a “B’ar” when he was only three.   Davy, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier   People of today’s generation have no concept of the impact that Davy Crockett had back in the 1950s. Star Wars and Harry Potter don’t come close.  … [Read more...]

Children today don’t need a Guardian Angel. Who needs angels when you have two over-protective parents that monitor each breath, public schools that inspect your lunch bags for trans-fats and a nanny-state government that requires seat belts and helmets when a youngster pulls up a chair to the kitchen table. But Boomers certainly needed Guardian Angels – a whole flock of them. It’s a wonder any … [Read more...]

  The hardest part of the day for many Boomers is finding their car in the parking lot. It’s not like the old days where you simply parallel parked in front of the store you were shopping and then went inside. When you finished, you knew exactly where your car would be. Life today is full of mega-parking lots and shopping centers on multiple levels, and every car in the lot is grey. If … [Read more...]

  There weren’t many ways to earn money as a Boomer teenager. Allowances were meager, maybe 50c a week. This was before child labor laws, where kids were required to do things like mow the lawn, load dishwashers, tend to younger brothers and sisters and help weed the garden for a lousy 50 cents a week. Summer offered some respite with a few lawn-mowing gigs, but there was often intense … [Read more...]

Every Boomer remembers test patterns. In the early days of television, each channel (usually one or two, that’s all we got) began the day and ended broadcasting with a test pattern on the screen. Most of us didn’t know what a test pattern was, really, or its purpose. All we knew that when the test pattern finally appeared (it took the tubes a while to warm up), there was nothing on the … [Read more...]

  Mama Ida worked for the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles in Raleigh for 40 years. She could look at a license plate number and tell which office and city it came from. Mama Ida was like a second mother to me. When my father was shot down in WWII, Mama Ida helped my young mother raise me and I always enjoyed spending as much time with her as I could. In the summer, when … [Read more...]