It was December 24, 1956. I had waited until the afternoon of Christmas Eve to begin my shopping spree. I had $10 saved up from my paper route and Mama Ida kicked in an extra five dollars so I could buy a present for everyone on my list. As I walked downtown, it was spitting snow. The lamp posts were adorned with Christmas lights and greenery and there was a Lionel train and a miniature town … [Read more...]

We put up our Christmas tree exactly one week before Christmas, and we took it down one week after. Never earlier, never later. It was tradition in our family when we lived in Lewisburg in the 1950’s. Selecting the tree was another tradition. On the appointed day, everyone piled in our car, a fifty-something Pontiac and headed for Bud Simm’s Esso Station, one of only a handful of places that … [Read more...]

Coach Ryder had scheduled junior high basketball practice over the Christmas Holidays. Those who wished not to be perpetual bench warmers would be wise to attend. Thus, I begged my parents to let me stay in Lewisburg rather than attend a funeral and then an extended stay in North Carolina. I asked my close buddy and fellow basketball teammate, Dave Gladwell, if his family could put me up for a few … [Read more...]

I saw a penny in the parking lot last week and stopped and picked it up. Most people won’t. A penny is looked upon as nuisance these days. Few will bend to pick one up and many toss any excess pennies in a bowl beside the cash registers. Boomers, though, can remember back when a mere penny bought tons of pure joy. Those were the days of penny candy. When I lived in Beckley, WV, my parents … [Read more...]

  A Boomer’s first love was likely his or her first car. It was one thing to drive the family sedan, but it was something else indeed to have your very own car. For most Boomers, that car was titled in the parents’ names, but if you had the keys, it was yours. My first car was a 1949 Pontiac two-door sedan. It was solid black with a little chrome here and there. I would not have been … [Read more...]

  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 Veteran, serving in the Pacific with the U.S. … [Read more...]

  My father, James E. Brewer, was killed in action during World War II, eight days before I was born at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, NC. His B 29 was shot down over Burma. My young mother then brought me home to live with her extended family – my Grandmother, Mama Ida; Aunt Pearl, my grandmother’s older sister; Joanne, my mom’s younger sister; and Uncle Sidney, Mama Ida’s younger brother. It … [Read more...]

There were two maple trees in our yard on Court Street when we moved to Lewisburg, WV in 1955. There was nothing unusual about those two trees in the spring and summer, other than the grass beneath them was always a good spot to catch a few night crawlers for fish bait. The trees were so thick with limbs that they weren’t much good for climbing. But when October arrived, the leaves on those … [Read more...]

  I was 5 when my family moved from Pittsburg to Beckley, West Virginia. My dad was an FBI agent and had been transferred. 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 … [Read more...]

Sears going bankrupt? It can’t be! Sears was America’s store. It’s where Boomers bought everything from sleeping bags to stereos to back-to-school clothes for their kids. And lives there a Boomer who can’t remember that special day when the Sears catalogue arrived in the mail? In the mail. Imagine that. That big, fat catalogue had hunting clothes and frying pans. It had ladies underwear … [Read more...]