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 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 know… Read more »

Memphis

I haven’t lived in Memphis for over 30 years. For many of those years, I flew in and out of Memphis on a fairly semi-regular basis. Holidays and birthday always brought me back. In those days Memphis was a hub and there was a direct flight on Northwest from the cold, gray skies of New… Read more »

Momma and The Senator from Arkansas

Come July, Mom has been gone for 14 years. Each time we visit Jonesboro, we visit the cemetery where she and dad, as well as Coachie and Miss Dot rest. We give each a little bourbon, and we have a drink with them. We’ve done this so often and for so long, I’m surprised that… Read more »

Always the Last to Know.

There are times in your life when you discover things that are shocking, completely unexpected, just out of the clear blue sky. People manage these moments in different ways. We all have friends who are blessed with grace and poise, a calm demeanor able to absorb difficult news with control and dignity. I’m not one… Read more »

Take The Test Drive

One afternoon years ago, a friend who shall remain unnamed, unexpectedly dropped by my apartment at Avondale Armpits. Avondale Armpits were apartments in Jonesboro, located on Nettleton just east of the intersection with Church St. They were originally designed to be a Holiday Inn, but somehow the deal fell through while that place was under… Read more »

Remember the Alamo

A couple of years ago, I visited the Alamo. The ghosts are thick there. I used to not believe in ghosts, but after living in a haunted house in Pennslyvania many years ago, I became a believer. That’s a story for another time. Ghosts seem to be part of my life now. From Gettysburg to… Read more »

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A Southern Adventure Continues…..

Trying to get traction with the big publishers is like going to Nashville hoping to be discovered as the next big country music star. There are so many others with such incredible talent who are already there doing the exact same thing that you are doing that being ‘discovered’ in Nashville is next to impossible…. Read more »

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Latest

  • Twenty Three Years in LandiLand

    Wedding bells in Bethlehem. Condo Hell. A House in South Plainfield. ‘Landi, did you pick this color?’ A dog named Buckwheat. A boy named Catfish. Jordan arrived in Jersey. Chaunti. Fish pond in the back yard. Jenn went to Australia and came home to Jersey. The Jersey Shore Hello Wardlaw-Hartridge. Good by money. Barbeque Professionals… Read more »

  • Don’t try this at home. We are professionals.

    Well, you’ve heard the saying ‘at least we weren’t DAL’? We don’t use that expression anymore. The event was ‘Smoking on the Square’ in Pensacola, and site was great….. except for the reserved Port-a-Potties.  We didn’t know anything about them, so we didn’t reserve one.  Let me just say that would have been a right… Read more »

  • Memories of Christmas Past

    I miss them most on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve they came to my parents house and we had quail for dinner. When he and Dad were younger, they would go quail hunting on Christmas Eve.  The quail they killed that morning were the quail we would have for dinner that night. They were quail… Read more »

  • A Tough Day at Work

    It will soak in at about 9:30 or so that the Catfish has gone back to school. Throughout the summer, if he was not working that day, it would be at 9:30 or so before he would wander into my freshly cleaned kitchen and begin the slow motion process of cooking breakfast and watching something… Read more »

  • In Memory of a Friend

    Moments of clarity. Singleness of thought. Focus. In a world broken up into 12 second sound bites, we have few moments of clarity. We are torn from one screaming crisis to another until something gives us pause, and we take that moment to think. It is sometimes said that youth is wasted on the young…. Read more »

  • Womens Volleyball

    Nearly everyone I know has spent at least a few minutes watching the Olympics.  My wife and I have watched more than our share of swimming.  Last night, we watched Women’s Beach Vollyball.  It brought back memories of a picnic and a volleyball match in Memphis many years ago. I was young, maybe 28 or… Read more »

  • Beware the Hookers

    I was excited about going to a casino, especially a casino in the Bahamas. I had never been to a casino anywhere, and all I knew about them I had learned from watching James Bond movies. I was excited at the prospect of playing roulette and baccarat surrounded by beautiful women. I was going to… Read more »

  • A Wedding Toast

    Laugh loud, laugh long, and laugh hard. Smile. Have a short memory and a big heart. Lift each other up, and help each other down. Eat a hotdog, and drink cabernet sauvignon in the rain. At the end of the day, be a hug and a smile. Be a harbor, not a storm. Be a… Read more »

  • The Old Man at the White Horse Tavern

    He was old and broken, but unbowed in his wheel chair.  The lady who brought him in could have been his daughter, but she wasn’t.  She was very pretty. For several weeks I watched her wheel him in for lunch each Wednesday at the White Horse Tavern.  That’s the bar in the Village, NYC where Dylan Thomas died. The old man… Read more »

  • Me, Boo, and The Goob

    No one could possibly enjoy raising kids more than I have.  Each and every day was an exciting new adventure.  We have had funerals for bunny rabbits, and created glow in the dark skeletons.   I coached every recreational league sport known to man.  I have probably spent years at Six Flags, Dorney Park, the Jersey… Read more »