By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Moms used to be more versatile. If you were in the back seat of the Buick, they could discipline you from the driver’s seat and never swerve or knock the ashes off their Marlboro Red.

My mom never smoked, so it’s possible that without a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, she was even more effective. At barely over five feet tall, she could reach over the front seat of her Electra 225 Limited and get to my sister or me, regardless of where we wiggled to in the back seat. There was no escaping. And we knew it.

In Ashdown, Arkansas, everyone’s mom was the same. And I’m certain that they either had ESP or a secret mom network. Because they all knew not only what their kids were doing, they knew what every other mom’s kids were doing.

If we acted up anywhere in public, mom had no problem solving that issue right then and there. If we were acting up and our mom wasn’t around, mom somehow knew what we’d done.

(Arriving home)

Mom: “So, how was your trip to the Piggly Wiggly?”

My sister and me in unison: “Fine.”

Mom: “Any problems?”

My sister and me in unison: “No, ma’am.”

Mom: “So, you two weren’t arguing about Lucky Charms on the cereal aisle?”

Me: “How did you know?”

Mom: “Scotty’s mom told me.”

Me: “How did she know? They’re on vacation in Cleveland.”

Mom: “Don’t backtalk me.”

Moms always knew things they shouldn’t have known. And back then, we didn’t have a telephone. Also, there were no CB radios and certainly no cellphones.

This level of ninja is what made moms the most feared entity on the planet.

Sure, we loved our dads, but moms were really the ones who engineered, implemented, and oversaw our upbringing. Dads were only brought in as backup.

Mom: “What have I told you two about arguing in public?”

My sister and me in unison: “Not to do it.”

Mom: “And what did I say would happen the next time you did it?”

My sister and me in unison: “That you’d tell dad.”

Mom: “So, that’s what I’m going to do.”

The only thing worse than dinner not being on the table and Huntley/Brinkley’s nightly news report not being on the TV when dad walked in the door at 5:30, was dad not being able to partake of either because he had to deal with us.

“Do you want to know what your children did today?” was not what our dad wanted to hear ever, and he certainly didn’t want to hear it when he had worked hard all day and was ready to eat and unwind.

So, my sister and I learned how to get out of a dad encounter. I was the one who had seen and learned the art of negotiation from my dad haggling at yard sales, estate sales, and flea markets. If both parties wanted something, you simply had to come up with the best deal for each to walk away happy.

If I offered for my sister and me to clean the house every day for a week, mom might consider not telling dad when we had gone astray. If we had argued in the grocery store, then cleaning the house daily for a week might keep her from telling dad what we had done. But if one of us had also thrown a punch and it was witnessed, then it was going to take more than cleaning to get out of that.

Mom: “Scotty’s mom said you grabbed the Lucky Charms from your sister and then hit her on the arm.”

Me: “It was just a tap.”

Mom: “Your dad’s going to tap you when he gets home.”

Me: “May I go to Cleveland?”

A car wash and vacuuming the Buick might have to be included as well. We’d do just about anything to make sure that dad was not going to be involved.

It was one thing if we acted up in the grocery store, but acting up in church was the worst offense possible. If you got caught talking or acting up during church, mom didn’t even bother to involve dad. She’d grab the closest piece of skin on you and drag you down the aisle and out the door.

And every person in there knew what was coming your way.

I’m not sure how the preacher ever stayed on topic when some kid was begging as he or she was being removed from the building. The best one was the kid whose mom was taking him out and just before the door closed yelled, “Y’all pray for me!”

And that’s what every kid today needs. An attentive mother who cares that their child learns responsibility, and prayer. It shows for anyone who had both.

Especially if their best friend’s mom was in Cleveland.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

In the North, dads have basements. In the South, they have shops. Both accommodate man things; such as woodworking, small engine repair, and isolation from the fairer sex.

As a kid in Ashdown, Arkansas, I saw basements on TV shows and wished we had one. My dad said the water table was too high where we lived, so a basement would flood. Instead, he used our garage to do man things. And he included me.

Whether it’s a basement, garage, shed, or shop, it’s ultimately a man cave. The ladies have the house. Men have the man cave.

The projects tackled in man caves are often framed as manly pursuits, but when I was growing up, they most often were things we couldn’t afford to pay other people to do.

Dads made you feel that the Y chromosomes were spending quality time together, when in reality you were being taught how to be self-reliant.

For that, I am forever grateful.

It may not seem like much, but knowing how to bleed the brakes, change the oil, replace the points and condenser, or rebuild a carburetor were, and still are, valuable things to know.

The same goes for replacing doorknobs, fixing the screen door, repairing a broken window, and reattaching the head of your sister’s doll.

Don’t ask.

There was also an unwritten rule that you watched before you helped. Dad would show you how to do something, then hand you the wrench. If you did it wrong, he showed you again. Eventually, you were expected to know which wrench he wanted before he asked for it.

That was part of the education.

On Thanksgiving Day 1974, my dad and I assembled a metal storage building that came from Sears. I learned how to read instructions and do a parts check to make sure we had enough screws.

We didn’t.

Part of that day included scavenging for extra parts to finish the job. I also learned why men never throw away leftover screws, washers, and nuts from previous projects.

Every respectable man cave has a coffee can, jar, or drawer full of miscellaneous hardware. You may not know where any of it came from, but throwing it away guarantees you’ll need it the following Saturday.

In addition to projects, most days in the man cave were sprinkled with stories of days gone by, when my dad worked on things with his dad or grandfather.

Knowledge was handed down. It provided the next generation the opportunity to learn how to fix and repair their things. It gives a man a feeling of independence. It also saves money. Money that I didn’t know at the time we didn’t have.

The old adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” is not only true, it’s needed.

There’s no better feeling than solving your own problems. Sometimes the repair doesn’t look exactly like the factory intended, but if it works, doesn’t leak, and doesn’t catch fire, you can usually call it a success.

My dad’s father was a blacksmith. He said that anything you need, you can make. If you can’t make it, you can buy it. But don’t buy it, because if you try hard enough, you can make it.

That philosophy was passed down through our family along with tools, old coffee cans full of bolts, and the belief that almost anything deserves at least one attempt at repair before being hauled off.

When we moved to our current homestead many years ago, I completed a shop on the property. It’s not huge, but it’s large enough to fit a vehicle, lawn tractor, and percolator.

Every man cave needs a percolator.

When I work on things, I sip coffee and think of my dad and grandfathers. They all taught me a lot. How to fix what I have, how to do it safely, and how to pass that knowledge down to my kids and grandkids.

And passing down self-reliance is the most important part. A repaired lawnmower eventually breaks again. A rebuilt carburetor will someday need rebuilding. But showing a kid how to figure something out stays with him.

Recently, I had air conditioning installed in my shop. My grandfathers would almost assuredly consider this less-than-manly, but whatever razzing I may face in the afterlife, I’m willing to take.

Besides, there’s nothing in the man cave rulebook that says you have to sweat while changing the oil.

In a society where most things are now considered disposable and many men only use a man cave for grilling and watching sports, I take pride in the fact that my boys and I still like having a broken lawnmower at our feet. Even if we are working on it in the air conditioning.

Welding, lawnmower repair, changing the oil, and knowing which end of a wrench to use are becoming a lost art.

Let’s keep ’em around.

I’ll make the coffee.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Long before anyone knew who Drew Carey was, there was a fella named Bob who hosted a little game show called, “The Price Is Right.”

My grandmother loved and never missed Bob Barker and his game show. Full disclosure, I was a closet fan of the program.

In the 1970s, it wasn’t very manly to admit that during the summer months and on sick days, I looked forward to playing The Price Is Right from the long, green velour couch in my parent’s living room.

It was just as uncool to be a Barry Manilow fan – but that’s another newspaper column.

My grandmother likely had something to do with my affection for that game show. During the time the show aired, she would get on the phone with her twin sister and they would discuss the contestant’s guesses and what they thought the correct price for the “Showcase Showdown” really was.

By my teens, I’d gotten a job at the local Piggly Wiggly and would do everything there from sack groceries, to running a register, unloading a truck at 3 a.m., or stamping prices on the cans and other products.

That was my favorite thing to do – stamp prices. Before there were bar codes and digital code readers at the registers, there were stock boys like me who walked around with a price stamper putting the correct amount on each and every item. The clerk at the register then had to manually punch in the amount on a mechanical cash register.

With that stamp gun, I felt important. I would walk around the store with it in a holster on my hip, ready at a moment’s notice to save a damsel in distress.

Customer: “Excuse me, young man. How much is this can of peas?”

Me: “Ma’am, I’ll take it from here.”

(Whips out price stamper; adjusts dial to read .19 cents; stamps price dead center of the top of can; returns can to waiting damsel.)

Me: “Here you go, ma’am. You’ll be fine now.”

Customer: “My hero!”

Well, it didn’t go exactly like that, but that’s how it felt.

My knowledge of product pricing tied in perfectly with The Price Is Right. From that long green couch, I would play The Price Is Right with the same intellectual precision that smart people play Jeopardy.

I was determined that one day I would be on The Price Is Right so that my grandmother could see me win a car, an Amana Radar Range, a set of World Book Encyclopedias, or the entire Showcase Showdown.

Flash forward from the 1970s to 1988.

My spouse announced that she was being sent to Irvine, California, to a class that was required for her job. I went to the bookshelf in our home and pulled the latest Rand McNally Road Atlas.

I opened it to California and began searching for Irvine.

Bingo. Just as I had thought. Irvine wasn’t far at all from Studio City, California, where they taped Bob Barker and his show.

I announced that I would tag along on her trip. I was determined to be on The Price Is Right.

I made a phone call to CBS Television and asked how it worked. The lady informed me that tickets to the show were free, but that there were only a couple of hundred seats available for each taping, and they were available first-come-first-served.

I asked what time I needed to show up to get in line. She recommended 3:30 a.m.

Just to be sure, I asked her to repeat that. She confirmed 3:30 a.m.

So, after arriving at the airport in Irvine, we rented a car so that I’d have a way to get to Bob Barker’s studio. The next morning, the alarm went off at 2:30. I dressed, put on my favorite shirt, and, with the Rand McNally in the passenger seat by my side, I headed into the darkness toward Studio City.

After parking the car and walking three or four blocks to the studio, my heart sank. There were already a lot of people in line for tickets. But, when they opened the ticket window five hours later, I made it. I got my ticket with only a few more people behind me able to secure theirs, too.

They told us to return at 1:30 p.m.

I visited the farmer’s market and other Hollywood landmarks and returned at the appointed time.

Now, here’s what’s interesting about game shows – they don’t work anything like you think that they do.

I assumed that they drew names out of a hat to determine who got to “Come on down!” But, no. They herded us through a line where we had to go before a sleazy-looking Hollywood producer, who said, “What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?” and then he says, “Next!”

If you’re a good-looking woman, a person in your military uniform, or a jovial person of girth, you had a chance to get picked to play the game. If you weighed 145, had a mullet, and weren’t a good-looking woman, a person in the military, or a jovial person of girth, you didn’t.

I obviously didn’t.

However, when it came time to seat us all in the studio (which is incredibly small, by the way), someone came up to me and said, “Please come with me.”

They had a single extra seat on the front row and needed someone to sit in it. Since I was alone, I was put there, right behind all of the contestant spots.

Game shows don’t tape the way you think they do and how they achieve the camera shots and angles is completely different than you expect. You know The Price Is Right logo that has the marquee lights that blink in sequence around the name of the show? That whole thing is about 3×5 inches with tiny light bulbs. They just put the camera right on top of it to make it look huge.

They also don’t have three or four stages. They had one. So, when Bob says, “How’d you like to win this?!” the director then yells, “Cut!” and they spend 45 minutes to an hour moving the old items from the stage and then bringing in the new ones. When they’re finished, the director says, “Action!” and they pick right back up.

It looks seamless on TV, but a one-hour show takes about four hours to tape.

I had a great view of the action, and watched one lady win a ton of things, including a new Corvette. But, I didn’t get on the show.

That was fine. Because my grandmother got to see her grandson on The Price Is Right.

And I still have that Piggly Wiggly price stamper. If I have to whip it out to help a damsel on aisle five with her can of peas, I’m not afraid to use it.

I’ll also remember the price. And it’ll be right.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Leaving Ashdown, Arkansas, was an event unto itself. When your family has one car, going anywhere was a treat. Especially if the destination was a long one where there were lots of people.

So, to be told you’re going to see somewhere you’ve never heard of was the equivalent of going to England. Which at even the ripe old preschool age I was, I had heard of England. The Beatles made sure of it.

When I was quite young, my parents drove us to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and then back to Dodge City, Kansas, before sailing down through the Ozark Mountains on Arkansas’ western side.

This was in a ‘60 model Buick with no air-conditioning. When you add a four-year-old and a two-year-old to a June trip in a ‘60 model Buick with no air conditioning, you’re witnessing true bravery.

In the mid-1960’s, the Interstate Highway System was not completely finished. It wouldn’t be until 1992, when the last segment of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, Colorado was done.

So, in the 60’s, you had your choice: the back roads or the backroads. Even many of the state highways then looked like backroads.

And it was on the backroads that I first met America.

I remember the state police saying hello to my sister and me. The Buick had overheated trying to climb a mountain in New Mexico. Their uniforms looked more like the ones I’d seen on TV.

The police told my dad that cars overheated at that spot all the time. Since we were crossing the top of the mountain and headed downhill, the car shouldn’t overheat again.

It didn’t.

The park rangers and visitors at Carlsbad Caverns were nice to us kids. They told us that it was hot outside, but soon we’d ride an elevator down into the caves and it would be nice and cool.

It was.

I remember my dad telling my mom that he was amazed I had walked all the way through the caves, which was over two miles. Mom had carried my sister the whole time. Hindsight, that was amazing. My mom was five feet tall and about 100 pounds.

I recall the trip from Carlsbad to Dodge City took way longer than I wanted it too. But once there, we watched a real gunfight (at that age, it sure looked real), and rode in a period stagecoach.

We have the 8-millimeter movies to prove it.

From there, we headed home.

My dad had radar for peaches or peanuts. If there were fresh, Elberta peaches or bags of peanuts for sale, we stopped.

The people who ran the stand where dad wheeled in were older. Older folks love little kids. Most older folks back then did, anyway.

The lady gave my sister and me a peach each. I’m sure that was after dad had purchased plenty from them.

You feel special when you’re young and are given something. Especially if it’s from someone you just met.

What was special was dad stopping at the roadside parks that once dotted the landscape of the backroads. The concrete picnic tables and cover were free and great.

I took a bite of that peach and chased it with roasted peanuts. Today, I still cherish that combination.

You don’t get that view of our great country when you’re on a plane or a train. Only from a car.

Maybe that’s what I miss most about traveling before the interstates took over. Getting there wasn’t something you endured. Getting there was part of the trip. You passed through small towns, saw courthouse squares, filling stations, diners, farms, and people sitting on front porches. You knew when you crossed a state line because things looked a little different.

There was no GPS telling you when you’d arrive. Dad had a paper map, and we had windows to look out of. Sometimes we got lost. Sometimes we stopped just because something looked interesting. And somehow, we always made it home.

Over 25 years ago, my wife and I hatched the idea of driving what’s left of Route 66, America’s original mother road. A number of things prevented it, but I intend for us to do it.

I’ll be looking for more of what I saw the last time.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

In 2014, I was contacted by a newspaper in Tyler, Texas. Unbeknownst to me, the publisher of said paper had been reading a blog I’d been writing for my family. The person who called me said the owner of the paper wanted to take my blog and make it a column.

You can imagine what a family blog contains. Who’s doing what, where they’re doing it, and how it ties into the rest of the family. Much like the Christmas letters some families like to send to you.

But my blog was different.

Each one was a story. A story that featured family members. The difference was the stories weren’t current. They were old.

And the reason I was writing the blog wasn’t for attention. It was to get my father to write down his life stories.

My dad was born during the Depression. His family, like other Southern families of the time, struggled. You worked hard just to eat. There were few if any luxuries. Listening to the radio was the entertainment. That and making your own fun.

My dad told my sister and me about his grandparents; growing up by the railroad tracks in Foreman, Arkansas; and the blacksmith shop his grandfather and dad worked in to put food on the table.

Dad told stories of his first car, a Model A Coupe, that he got for $25. He kept it going so that he could have a way to get to school and to work at the Jitney Jungle, which was a grocery store.

He talked of joining the National Guard and being deployed to Central High in Little Rock, where his division provided the needed protection for children to go to school. Children who’d been denied entrance because of the color of their skin.

Dad told stories of buying his first transistor radio in the 1950s, so that he could listen to St. Louis Cardinals baseball while he was in his military bunk at night. And of the other enlisted man who had a ham radio, and called CQ all night seeking others to talk to.

He told stories of being one of the early computer programmers for the government. Dad was a tank mechanic at Red River Army Depot. He said one day a man came outside where he was working and asked if anyone had any interest in learning how to operate these new computers Washington had sent.

Dad said it was air conditioned where the computers were, and that he had no idea how to operate them, but the AC made it worth it to learn.

My father told the story of being at work one day when another man came in and asked if he wanted to retire early with full pay and benefits. President Clinton was closing down part of the depot. So, at 54 years old, my dad went fishing full time.

I feared that my dad would never write these stories down, and that my children and grandchildren would lose the opportunity to know who my father was and what he had done.

So, I wrote a weekly blog about my growing up years and would publish and send it to my dad to show him that it wasn’t that hard to do.

But time passed, and he showed little interest in writing anything.

After my writings started appearing in the paper, other newspapers contacted me and asked to publish it. I was asked by a reader how to buy my books. I didn’t have any books, so I published some.

I guess all of that activity helped. One morning at 3:17, my dad sent me his stories. Not all of them, but many.

Two weeks later, my dad passed away.

Looking back, I realize this journey was never really about newspaper columns or books. It was about preserving voices that otherwise might have been lost to time. Every family has stories worth saving. They don’t have to be dramatic to be meaningful. They simply have to be remembered before memory gives way to silence.

I tell you all of this because this week marks my 600th newspaper column. I remember my wife asking me when it started how long I thought I’d write it. I flippantly said 500 would be enough.

But we’re now 100 past that. My wife said she’d thought I’d have run out of stories by now. I did too. But here we are.

My reason for continuing to write and to speak on the lecture circuit is to encourage you to write down your life. No one else would tell your story better than you. And it will allow you to talk to family members who’ve yet to be born.

And if you can get your parents or grandparents to write down their stories before they’re gone, that’s the best story of all.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

“Are we going out to eat?” was not a phrase my sister or I uttered often or lightly. But if we came home from school and mom didn’t have supper started, then there was a good chance dad was taking us out for dinner.

My dad pulled his 1952 Chevy pickup into the gravel driveway at 5:30 each weekday. You could set your watch by it. At the red brick house on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, mom had the biscuits in the oven by 5, and the fried potatoes sitting in the serving bowl by 5:20.

So, if my sister and I saw that neither were complete, we knew we were going out to eat.

In the 1960s, the dad worked, the mom stayed home, and you rarely went out to eat. Budgets were tight and every dollar had to be stretched. The only thing that varied at home was that you might have pork chops or fried chicken instead of chicken fried steak. You always had fried potatoes and biscuits with gravy.

But if you were going out to eat, there were a handful of options: Herb’s Creamland, the Tastee-Freez, or Mac’s Cafe.

I’m not sure if the “the” in the Tastee-Freez was required, but we included it. Just like my grandmother didn’t have a headache, she had, “the headache.” Someone didn’t have diabetes, they had, “the sugar diabetes.”

Which was something you might get if you ate often at the Tastee-Freez or Herb’s Creamland.

But boy, it was worth it.

Ashdown was a small town, so just about everyone was kin. Including Herb. He was my cousin and made the best hamburger in town.

If we went to Herb’s, my sister and I got the same thing: Herb Burger combo, which came with crinkle cut fries, a drink, and an ice cream cone.

If we’d been good for mom that week, dad would let us get a chocolate dipped cone.

The Tastee-Freez also had hamburgers, but the usual choice was a chili dog. Something later made famous by John Mellencamp in the song Jack and Diane.

Tastee-Freez also had fries, but instead of a drink or ice cream, we’d always ask for a milkshake. At the time, they offered 100 flavors of shakes. Number 99 was coconut. It tasted so good.

But usually, dad wanted to go to Mac’s Cafe. It was the closest thing to fine dining Ashdown had. In reality, it was a truck stop.

The same cooks and waitresses worked there my whole life. They knew what you liked and almost didn’t have to come to the table or booth to take an order.

More than anything, I think my dad liked going there so he could shoot the breeze with the waitress. After about five minutes of kidding with each other, she’d write down our order on a small pad, take it to the kitchen window, yell out the order, and then shove the paper into a spinning, chrome wheel that was then twirled around to face the cook.

Mac’s had great everything. Their burgers, sandwiches, and hot plates were all excellent. But hands down, almost everyone’s go-to order was the hot steak sandwich.

The name was misleading, because it wasn’t a sandwich. It was a battered and fried beef cutlet that was placed on top of toast and then smothered in gravy. A small salad on one side, french fries on the other.

You could request the brown gravy on your fries. Some wanted ketchup. Not me. I wanted gravy on everything. Except the salad.

What made the salad at Mac’s great was the dressing. It sat on the table in a squeeze bottle, the same as the ketchup. You knew by the color of what was in the bottles which one was which.

The salad dressing was so good, we used to eat fistfuls of crackers covered in it. I didn’t know until years later that the dressing was made in-house with only mayo, ketchup, and some garlic.

Mac’s and Tastee-Freez are long gone in Ashdown. Herb’s is the only one still there and in operation.

When I go back home, I try to stop in for a Herb Burger, fries, and a dip cone.

I wish I could still get a chili dog from the Tastee-Freez or a hot steak sandwich from Mac’s. Over the years, I’m sure my wife has tired of me wishing for both.

I can still taste that hot steak sandwich and coconut milkshake if I think about it. But I need to take it easy. I don’t think you can get the sugar diabetes from good memories, but I might get the headache trying.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

I’m not sure what fundraisers try to sell to grade school kids today, but when I was a kid, it was books. The school would hand out a pamphlet to each kid with a wide selection of paperback and hardback books we could buy. Cheap.

Maybe these were books that didn’t sell somewhere else, or maybe they were just reprints of books that had sold before, but the other kids and I bought them. Lots of them.

They were all appealing. Books by Beverly Cleary, Alfred Hitchcock, and science fiction from masters including Isaac Asimov.

Income for kids in the 60s and 70s was limited to whatever you could earn by doing chores, mowing yards, or helping a neighbor. There were rumors that some kids got an allowance, but I never met any of them. So, money was hard earned, and therefore, valuable.

But I freely let some of it go for scary stories or intrigue.

Looking back, I don’t remember anyone in the Ashdown, Arkansas, school system twisting my arm to read. The books simply looked interesting. The covers were colorful. The descriptions were exciting. Best of all, they belonged to me.

They usually arrived a few weeks after we turned in our order forms. There was something special about seeing a stack of brand-new books with a piece of paper attached that had my name on it.

Teachers were smart enough to know that if a child is interested in what he is reading, he is far more likely to keep turning the pages.

Some kids liked mysteries. Others wanted books about sports, animals, history, outer space, or famous people. There were joke books, puzzle books, collections of ghost stories, and books that taught magic tricks. Nobody seemed overly concerned that everyone read much of the same thing. The important thing was that we were reading.

That lesson has stayed with me.

Some adults spend too much time worrying about whether a child is reading the “right” book. I have always believed that reading something is better than reading nothing at all. A youngster who devours books about dinosaurs today may be reading biographies tomorrow. A child fascinated by model airplanes may eventually develop an interest in engineering. The path doesn’t matter nearly as much as developing the habit.

Reading opens doors that television, phones, and video games simply cannot. It stretches a child’s imagination because the pictures have to be created in the reader’s own mind. It expands a kid’s vocabulary without feeling like homework. It quietly teaches grammar, sentence structure, and storytelling. Long before many children realize it, they’re becoming better communicators.

Those little book orders also taught us something about making choices. We had limited money, so we studied every page of those catalogs. We’d compare prices, count our dollars, and decide which titles would give us the biggest bang for the buck. Sometimes a friend ordered a book we couldn’t afford, and after both of us finished reading, we’d trade.

The books often made the rounds through an entire neighborhood before finally ending up on someone’s bedroom bookshelf.

There was another benefit I didn’t appreciate until I was older. Those book sales weren’t just about putting stories into children’s hands. They also helped schools raise money. Every order generated a little extra income that could be used wherever it was needed most. Those dollars often supported activities that tax money didn’t completely cover.

They helped buy uniforms for athletic teams, supplies for art classes, music programs, library materials, playground equipment, classroom projects, and dozens of other things that enriched school life. We probably never gave it much thought while filling out our order forms, but every paperback carried a small benefit that reached far beyond the student who bought it.

Looking back, that was a pretty clever arrangement. Kids received books they genuinely wanted to read; the buyer paid only a few dollars, and schools gained resources that benefited everyone. It’s hard to find fault with that formula.

Today there are countless ways to read. Books can arrive instantly on a tablet or phone. Libraries offer digital downloads. Audiobooks are everywhere. Those are wonderful advances, but I hope we never lose sight of the simple idea behind those old paper catalogs.

Give children something that interests them.

Let them choose.

Don’t worry if it’s science fiction instead of history, mysteries instead of classics, or books about baseball instead of poetry. The love of reading rarely begins with assignments. It usually begins with curiosity.

For many of us, that curiosity arrived folded neatly inside a thin school pamphlet. We circled our choices, counted our money, and waited for delivery day.

When the box finally arrived in the classroom, it felt a little like Christmas.

The books may have cost us, but what they gave us was priceless.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Transistor radios were a breakthrough in entertainment. Especially for young people. When they debuted in the 1950’s, they were expensive, but condensed the ability to hear radio stations from across the country into a small device that ran on batteries.

My first transistor radio was a Sony that my grandparents gave me. I still have it and it still works, some 50+ years later.

The downside to these radios was that they had no low end (bass). They sounded tinny. But because of their portability and the fact that with some earbuds you could pick up and listen to your favorite radio station, we were OK with it. By the time I got my radio, my parents had purchased an RCA console stereo. It had AM, FM, a record player, and an 8-track tape deck. And the sound was amazing. Whether you were listening to an FM station, my dad’s Buddy Holly or Simon and Garfunkel albums, or my mom’s 8-track tape of Bobby Goldsboro, it sounded as if they were performing in the room with you.

This was after we had moved from Beech Street to Locust Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, and my parents had built a new house with a game room. We had a pool table, ping pong table, and that RCA console stereo. Every member of the family spent many an hour in there, and we wore out many records and tapes.

But something happened in the 2000s that changed things. We started going back to personal devices. Whether it was an iPhone, laptop, or other electronic device, the sound was not as full. Granted, there are now earbuds that greatly enhance the sound of what we hear, but I argue that digital music just doesn’t sound as good as vinyl records.

Which is why I was pleased to see a story on television of a company run by younger people who are building “listening rooms” in different cities around the country. People pay $20 each to book a seat in a room with some of the finest sound equipment available today. And they listen to music on vinyl.

No one is allowed to talk during the session, which allows every paying customer to just sit back, close their eyes, and soak in the tunes.

I never got away from having good sound equipment. After I grew up, I went to the Audio Center on Stateline Avenue in Texarkana, Texas, and spent $1,000 on a Technics receiver and amplifier, cassette player (8-tracks were phasing out by then), and a set of Bose 501 Speakers.

To put this in perspective, $1,000 in 1980 is worth $4,225 today. It was a lot of money and I had worked hard to get it. But that’s how valuable the best possible sound was to me.

A few years ago, I saw an ad for a 1964 Magnavox console stereo for sale. It belonged to a lady who was 90 years old, but it looked like it just left the showroom floor at Sears and Roebuck. It even still had the paperwork and warranty card. People used to take better care of their things than they do today.

Picked it up for $100. Everything worked and It now sits in my office where I tune in radio stations or put a favorite album on the platter.

Some records from the mid-20th Century were produced better than others, but the vinyl made in the 50s and 60s had wider grooves and produced better sound than what was put out in the 70s and 80s before vinyl was being phased out.

But a funny thing happened about 10 years ago. Vinyl became popular again. Which led to manufacturers making records again. And some of the vinyl that’s made today is superior to what was made when I was a kid. The records are measured in grains (the texture or compound of the vinyl itself). I’ve purchased some of the high-quality albums from bands such as Heart and Joe Walsh, and they do sound great.

But they are way more expensive at $40 and $50 or more each than the records I bought for $2.99 back in the day.

If you’ve never experienced really good audio, I recommend you invest in a good sound system with some vinyl records. Or, you could by a $20 ticket to one of the listening sessions if you’re close to where one is open for business.

Or, you could stop by my office and listen to it there. Let me know you’re coming and I’ll put on a pot of percolator coffee.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

When I was about 10, I wrote a letter to my aunt, who lived in Oklahoma. I’d never written a letter to anyone before.

For a kid in Ashdown, Arkansas, Oklahoma might as well have been China.

I just knew that I didn’t see her or my uncle much, and I told my grandmother I missed them. She suggested I write them a letter. So, I did.

That is, I wrote a letter after my grandmother got out her good stationery, envelopes, and stamps.

Stationery used to be serious business. Some people got boxes of it that were nice, while others picked paper stock they liked and had a printer put their name and address on it.

Normally, they’d pick a pretty or serious-looking font. Whatever reflected how they wanted to come across to the recipient.

My grandmother had store-bought stationery. Didn’t have her name on it, but if you received anything on that stationery, you recognized it was from her.

Had I not known about stationery, I would’ve sent a letter on paper from my Big Chief tablet.

I asked my grandmother what I should write in the letter. She told me that letters were conversations. They were one-sided, when you sent the letter and if the person wrote you back (which was expected), they’d continue the conversation by responding to what you’d written.

Calling on the phone seemed easier, and it was. But calling someone outside the area of where you lived was long distance, and long distance wasn’t cheap. You paid by the minute, and it could cost $1 to $3 every sixty seconds.

So, a letter was the obvious choice.

My grandmother told me to write the way I talked. Tell them what I’d been doing, ask how they were, and don’t worry about sounding important. A letter wasn’t a school assignment. It was simply a visit on paper.

I wrote carefully, pressing hard with my pencil. There wasn’t a delete key. If I made a mistake, I erased until the paper got thin or started over. When I finished, my grandmother corrected a misspelled word, showed me where to sign my name, folded the letter neatly, sealed the envelope, and handed me a stamp. That little stamp somehow made the whole thing official. Then we walked to the mailbox.

Dropping that envelope through the slot felt like sending it on an adventure. I had no idea where it went after that. Somewhere, strangers sorted it, loaded it onto trucks, and eventually it found its way to my aunt’s mailbox in Oklahoma.

Then came the waiting. A couple of weeks later, she wrote me back on Snoopy letterhead. She loved Peanuts. I still have that letter.

Today, people send a text and wonder why someone hasn’t answered in five minutes. Back then, you waited days for your letter to arrive, then several more hoping one would come back. It taught patience whether you wanted to learn it or not.

When the reply finally arrived, it was exciting. Before you even opened the envelope, you recognized the handwriting. Somehow you could almost hear the person’s voice as you read the words. Their personality seemed to come through in every line.

The best part was that letters stayed with you.

People tucked them into dresser drawers, cigar boxes, or shoeboxes. Years later, you could unfold those same pages and revisit a moment in time. If the person who wrote the letter was gone, you still had something they had touched, something they had written, and something they wanted you to know.

Text messages disappear into phones.

Emails get buried in inboxes.

But handwritten letters have a way of surviving. They become family history without anyone intending them to.

I don’t remember exactly what I wrote to my aunt. It probably wasn’t anything remarkable. But I remember what my grandmother taught me that afternoon.

A letter isn’t really about paper, stamps, or stationery. It’s about taking enough time to let someone know they’re worth hearing from.

That’s something worth writing home about.

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As a kid, I was fairly certain I’d never get any couth. I wasn’t sure what couth was, but it seemed to be important to my grandparents. If you made a social error, you’d be asked, “Ain’t you got any couth?”

If you grew up between the 1940s and 1970s, it was a different world than today. Life moved at a slower pace, neighbors knew one another, kids went outside, and grandparents ruled their homes with authority. They didn’t hold family meetings or explain anything.

Looking back, it’s remarkable how nearly every grandparent seemed to follow the same unwritten rulebook, whether they lived on a farm, in a small town, or in the middle of a city or small town, including my grandparents’ home in Ashdown, Arkansas.

One of the greatest mysteries was the parlor. Today, we call it the living room. It seemed that only folks who possessed couth were allowed in there.

It was the nicest room in the house, filled with polished furniture, family photographs, lace curtains, and treasured keepsakes. Yet only a select few went in there. The family gathered in the kitchen or den. The parlor was reserved for company, weddings, funerals, or when the preacher stopped by.

If kids went in there, they did so only by invitation, and they certainly weren’t allowed to sit on the sofa. Or as my grandparents called it, the divan. The divan was covered in clear plastic that squeaked every time someone sat on it. During the summer, it clung to bare legs. Comfort wasn’t the goal. Keeping the furniture looking new was.

The same thinking applied throughout the house. The bathroom displayed embroidered towels no one dared use. Decorative bars of soap sat untouched beside the sink. Somehow every child knew those belonged to guests who rarely appeared. Family members used the faded, threadbare towels hanging behind the door.

The kitchen had its own set of rules.

You didn’t open the refrigerator just to decide what looked good. You knew before you opened the door. If you stood there too long, someone would yell at you that they weren’t paying to, “cool the whole neighborhood.”

Whatever was served at supper was what you ate. And whatever landed on your plate had better be gone before you left the table. Most grandparents had lived through years when wasting food simply wasn’t an option. Leftovers became tomorrow’s lunch.

Mealtime came with expectations. No elbows on the table. No hats. Chew with your mouth closed. Ask someone to pass the biscuits instead of reaching across the table. When you finished, you politely asked to be excused.

Adults were “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” or “Miss.” Answers began with “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.” Interrupting grown-ups wasn’t acceptable. Children waited patiently until the conversation ended, no matter how important they thought their own news might be.

Running through the house was discouraged. Beds weren’t for jumping. Muddy shoes stayed outside. And whatever you did, don’t slam the screen door. Grandparents could hear it from anywhere on the property.

Then there were the lights. Every room you left was expected to be dark. Water wasn’t left running. Waste wasn’t tolerated because every utility bill mattered.

Television had rules, too. Most homes had one set, and Grandpa usually occupied the best chair. Whatever he watched became the evening’s entertainment for everyone. Saturday night was Lawrence Welk, Porter Wagoner, and Hee Haw.

Some possessions seemed almost too valuable to use. The good china. The crystal glasses. The silverware. The fancy tablecloth. I wondered why anyone owned things that stayed tucked away in cabinets most of the year.

The answer became clearer with age.

Many of those grandparents had endured difficult times. They learned to take care of what they owned because replacing it wasn’t easy. They believed good manners reflected good character. They understood that discipline prepared children for life.

At the time, those rules sometimes felt unnecessary. Today, they feel surprisingly wise.

Many of us have caught ourselves repeating the very words we once heard growing up. Turn off the lights. Close the refrigerator. Take your shoes off. Don’t put your feet on the furniture. Finish your supper.

I have become my grandparents.

Years later, I finally understood that the rules were never really about plastic-covered furniture, guest towels, or staying out of the parlor. They were about respecting other people, appreciating what you had, avoiding waste, and taking pride in your home.

Maybe if I keep trying, I’ll eventually get some couth.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com