America really is The Land of Opportunity. Even if there’s only one opportunity, and that opportunity is cutting the grass.
Ashdown, Arkansas, was a pretty typical small American town in the 1960s and 1970s.
Kids weren’t just handed things. If we wanted something, we were told to work for it.
By John Moore
For more on this story see the May 16, 2024 print, or digital edition of the Murphy Monitor. Subscribe today and support local journalism in your community.
Related News
Photo by Ricardo Guzman, Pixabay As we left Ashdown, Arkansas, in my mom’s 1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited, my mom turned to my dad and asked, “Jimmy, are you sure we have enough money?” He responded, “Well, Mary. If four hundred dollars isn’t enough to spend two weeks...
When it’s time to take a hard look at our public officials and decide which ones to re-elect – or reject – we need information.A major source of that information is the government itself. Access to public records and meetings is essential for us to know the facts and...
Movies were better in a theater. A theater filled with people. Such was the case before the internet. Before HBO. Before people holed up in their living rooms and away from their neighbors and friends. A time when pay-per-view meant you bought a ticket to watch a...
John Moore’s genuine Scouting pocketknife. Courtesy John Moore I learned a lot from Scouting. Started as a Cub Scout, then joined Webelos, then the Boy Scouts. Girls and making money took priority over my time around age 14, so I never made Eagle Scout....
Cast iron skillet used for generations by John Moore’s family that was featured in The Pioneer Woman Magazine. Courtesy John Moore. My momma’s skillet and this columnist are featured in the fall 2017 issue of The Pioneer Woman Magazine. Well, it used to be my momma’s...
Columnist John Moore’s sister took first place at the county fair with a photo she snapped on a Colorado train trip. Photo courtesy John Moore The photo was taken quickly with little thought of its future impact. It was just one on the 36-count roll of Kodak color...
Lying on the deck behind the backseat and staring upward through the rear glass of a Buick gave a kid the perfect view of the sky and clouds. A cloud could look like a bear one moment, and a crocodile the next. Family road trips of the 1960s and 70s obviously did not...
Columnist John Moore takes sopping seriously. Courtesy John Moore Southerner’s are big on sopping. We like to sop our biscuits in lots of things. There isn’t much that’s better than sopping a cathead biscuit in gravy. Especially if your mom made both. My mother worked...
About 40 years ago, my dad gave me a radio. Not just any radio. It is what’s called a farm radio. According to Texas Co-op Power Magazine, in 1936 just three out of 100 farms had electricity. By the mid-1940’s it was three out of 10. That still left most farm...
The great thing about growing a lot of your own food is the ability to walk out the back door and pick it. It doesn’t get much fresher than that. If there’s a downside to growing a garden (we had seven garden areas this year), it’s that it seems that most of the...
0 Comments