Christmas, in a child’s mind, is a magical and amazing time.  Santa. Gifts. Candy. Candy Canes. Candy Corn. Syrup. However, my best Christmas was my family’s worst. The winter of 1964 was an especially cold, dreary, and snowy one. My dad had lost his job (coal mining cycle). Mom was pregnant with my youngest sister… Read more »

Well, here I go again… my continuing rant about checks. Beyond the theft risk (here, world, is all the information you need to rob me) and fraud risk (lets go to Wal-Mart and buy a color printer to create fake checks), the greatest negative impact of checks is on poor people. Don’t believe me? Last Wednesday, we… Read more »

Besides being a Van Morrison song title, how much do you know about Tupelo honey?  Tupelo honey is produced by honeybees who collect the unusual nectar from Ogeechee Tupelo trees in the remote wetlands of Georgia and Florida. The honey has an unusually high fructose to glucose ratio. This quality allows the energy in honey… Read more »

Betting seems to be all around us. On TV, we see ads for various betting sites. In our backyard, we see a new casino in Bristol. Who would have thought even a few years ago that legal gambling would take off the way it has. When it comes to betting, you must be smart and… Read more »

It was a long Wednesday, and it had gotten late. Lunch was eight hours ago, so on my way home around nine, I swung by the Taco Bell in Norton. Simple – just two bean burritos and a sweet tea would suffice for such a late meal. As I drove up to the restaurant (and… Read more »

Well, there it is. The last of the tomatoes gathered from plants I spent all summer tending to. There may be a few more, but I kind of doubt it. These tomatoes were shared with my family, friends and even a stranger or two. Among the many blessings of living here in Appalachia is the… Read more »

As I rounded the corner at the Hardees drive-up on Saturday, I noticed the busy young lady handling the window. She looked very familiar. The line was long but moving well. The young lady had a determined and serious look on her face. When I got to the window to pay, I finally recognized her… Read more »

There are lots of “inconveniences” in life. Forgetting your lunch money. Oversleeping for an appointment. And the coup de grâce – the flat tire! Perhaps made worse by rain. You’ve been there.  Finding the jack. Figuring out how it works. Rusty lug nuts that take herculean efforts to get loose. Then praying that the spare… Read more »

As a kid, Saturdays were filled with cartoons – and slapstick. The Three Stooges primarily, but also the duo of Laurel & Hardy.  In many movies and movie shorts made between the 1920s and the 1950’s, Oliver Hardy was the pompous bully and Stan Laurel the clumsy childlike one. In one of my favorite episodes,… Read more »

Recently, we went to an exhibit at the Biltmore Art Gallery featuring Claude Monet and his contemporaries. The art was magnificent, but the story behind what we now view as an important part of art history was just as interesting to me. Until the time of Monet, Manet, Lautrec, Renoir, Morisot, and Cezanne Degas, painters were… Read more »