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Mrs. Dorthy Rauth

A few years ago, shortly after I bought my Ford Expedition, my wife needed to go get something out of the car. Rather than giving her my keys, I gave her my “code” to unlock the doors. I rattled it off like it was a phone number. “It’s very easy to remember,” I added. Landi… Read more »

Meeting The Family

Catfish has met a girl. He met a really nice girl, a girl he likes a lot. I know he likes her a lot just because he told us about her. At first, I somewhat doubted whether or not the girl actually existed anywhere but in his imagination. However, we saw photos of the two… Read more »

Random Christmas Memories

Yesterday, while at the lab waiting to have blood drawn, I reflected a little bit on Christmas through the years. Random thoughts came to mind, in no particular order. I guess I actually started down this rabbit hole on the drive to the lab. While driving in standard early Monday traffic, I remembered Christmas from… Read more »

Indian Mall

The Indian Mall was, for half a century, the crown jewel of North East Arkansas shopping. Paragould, Batesville, Blytheville, nor West Memphis had anything even remotely like it. It was cool, air conditioned indoor shopping on hot summer days and warm dry shopping on cold, rainy winter nights.

Kill Ball

As an underclassman, I remember fear the first time we all walked onto the basketball court in Junior High to play kill ball. I had never played before. Most of the ninth graders were nine feet tall. Eighth graders werent that tall. They were only eight feet tall. Seventh graders, we were tiny. We were… Read more »

Interacting With The Spirit World

In Fall of 1991, I moved from Memphis, Tennessee to Allentown, Pennsylvania. After living in an Embassy Suites hotel for a few months, I finally committed to an apartment of sorts. It was actually the upper floor of a place called the Mauch Chunk Hotel. It was 200 years old and was located on Mauch… Read more »

The Best Thing About Waking Up

I have an ax to grind with the weasel who first conceived the idea of putting images and messages on coffee mugs. You know, coffee mugs that have pictures or phrases on them commemorating places you’ve been or offering some funny observation. Those are the ones. I have about fifty of them, and I can’t… Read more »

Friday Night in Pensacola

Have you ever been to a bar or restaurant that was so good or so much fun that you almost didn’t want to tell anyone about it so that it didn’t get overrun? I knew a place like that in Memphis and now I’ve found one in Pensacola. Upstairs above The District Steakhouse, there is… Read more »

The Importance of Reading Instructions

Recently, my wonderful wife and I have been reminiscing about the joy of trying to teach teenagers to read the instructions that accompany new things. Some things are complicated to operate, and kids tend to ignore the instructions and just begin messing with the ‘thing’ until they either break it, or it works. With Ipads… Read more »

Boxes of Crap

Boxes of crap always pose unseen dangers for me. I keep mementos. I have a spirit ribbon from a Douglas MacArthur Junior High football game in 1972. I’m sure it meant something at one time, but I seem to have killed the brain cells that held that memory. I can’t throw it away because I… Read more »

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Latest

  • Heifer High

    I have struggled for nearly a month to put words to a shared high school experience I enjoyed in the mid-1970s. In 1973 at the conclusion of our Freshman year, our last year of Junior High School, a tornado tore through Jonesboro, Arkansas (my hometown), and destroyed not only a lot of homes and businesses,… Read more »

  • Birdland

    It’s a small collection of streets that make up the neighborhood: Robin, Cardinal, Thrush, Lark, and Starling. Dove was added after all the history was made. In the early 1960s when we first moved into Birdland, there were an abundance of lots available. There were several undeveloped lots on the east side of Robin near… Read more »

  • Bottling Bourbon in Texas

    In late May of 1975, my friend Danny returned from college in Dallas. On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, we drove to Hardy, Arkansas to participate in the Spring River Canoe Race. The race was held every Memorial Day. Danny had a very cool red jeep complete with a kick ass Craig stereo, over… Read more »

  • Roy’s First Chance/Last Chance

    Back in the day, Roy’s First Chance/Last Chance was where a lot of folks from Arkansas State had their first beer. Roy’s still exists, and is still little more than a shack that used to be held up by beer. Today I suspect it stands only because the termites are holding hands. It’s a small… Read more »

  • A Night at the Landmark

    In Paragould, Arkansas there is a bar called the Landmark Lounge. It’s a little out of the way place. A dingy, dimly lite dive where cold beer and lousy food is proudly served and where crappy local bands play really, really loud. When you are young, this seems like a good place to be. Cold… Read more »

  • Kids and Puppy Dogs

    Today I was working in the yard. I was pulling weeds from the gardens and putting mulch down. It’s not like I enjoy working in the yard. Some people enjoy it. Some people enjoy colonoscopies, too. I don’t enjoy either. I would almost rather have a tooth pulled than to have to work in the… Read more »

  • What is a TSR good for?

    Over dinner a few nights ago, we visited with new friends and had a great time telling old stories from our lives. Our new friends are an interesting couple who share a lot of interests with Landi and me. The husband works in Information Tech. This of course, led to shop talk. Shop talk leads… Read more »

  • One Hell of a Starry Night

    On a warm and starry night in the spring of 1954, a dashing young doctor met a beautiful young nurse on the Skyway at the Peabody Hotel and they danced. On November Sixth in 1954, they eloped and embarked on a wonderful fairy tale of a life. Through house fires, tornadoes, three children, and a… Read more »

  • Ashley’s Wedding

    Roughly 15 years ago my niece, Ashley, held her wedding on a sweltering evening in mid-August. Everyone thinks they know hot. Everyone thinks they know humid. If you haven’t spent an August in Jonesboro, Arkansas you know neither hot nor humid. In August, if the air moves at all, you feel more like a dog… Read more »

  • The Last Swim Meet

    In early August of 1965, I joined the Jonesboro YMCA swim team. I joined on a Friday, and the State Swim Meet was held the next day in Jonesboro. I won 3rd place in Freestyle and Backstroke, and would have had 2nd in Butterfly, but I was disqualified. Before that morning, I had never heard… Read more »