Columnist John Moore speaks Southern. He learned it in his grandfather's blacksmith shop. Photo John Moore Southern folks don’t need proper nouns. We have whatchamacallits and thingamajigs. My grandfather had the only blacksmith shop in Ashdown, Arkansas. That’s where...
Late 1940s postcard of Williams Theater in Ashdown, Arkansas. The theater was built in 1947. Columnist John Moore’s father, Jimmy, was a projectionist there in the mid-1950s. Courtesy John Moore Growing up, movies weren’t just a Saturday night diversion. They were...
When you grow up in a Southern church, you learn how things are done. And how they’re not done. Some kids learn early. Some kids never get it. Bethel Missionary Baptist Church was a small, white frame structure. Like many churches of mid-20th Century America, it was...
Columnist John Moore no longer has an 8-track in his car, but he hangs on to the technology in his house.Courtesy John Moore When long hair was hot, the measure of male teenage coolness in the 1970s, was the sound system in your ride. Your car could burn...
Columnist John Moore remembers the parlors of the houses of yesterday. Where plastic covered the furniture, fresh flowers adorned the window sills, and you’d better not ever get caught going in there. Courtesy John Moore There was always one room in every Southern...
Columnist John Moore snapped this photo of his back pasture. A place he now calls home, and wishes he'd called home it sooner. Courtesy John Moore I grew up in the far southwest corner of Arkansas. Nature drove the speed of life, and the towns breathed at an unhurried...
Columnist John Moore learned early what his mom meant when she spoke. He's pictured with his mother in 1963.Courtesy John Moore Being a kid in the South required being able to speak Mom. For example: “We’re you raised in a barn?” didn’t actually mean, “We’re you...
Columnist John Moore grew up in Little River County, Arkansas. Where they still say, “y’all.” Courtesy John Moore According to Merriam-Webster, a colloquialism is “a local or regional dialect expression.” Another definition? Language that’s “unacceptably informal.”...
Columnist John Moore recently pulled over to buy fruit from a roadside stand. It reminded him of home. Courtesy John Moore There’s a rhythm to the seasons that you can feel in your bones when you grow up in a place like southwest Arkansas. Long before supermarkets...
