By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Broadcasting on Sundays was once a sea of sermons. If you turned on your radio or television, you’d hear or see a minister delivering his weekly message. From sunup (when stations signed on) until at least noon, it was solid preaching.

Today, depending on where you live, it’s still a lot like that. But the once unthinkable programming decision to air something other than a church program eventually crept into our Sabbaths.

Unless you grew up during the mid-20th Century, it’s hard to understand how many different church programs there were. We only had three television channels (ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates), but there were lots of different radio stations. And for every broadcasting outlet, there were sometimes dozens of preachers.

Most were local ministers, but some had regional followings. A select few had national ministries. When I got into the radio business in the late 1970s, I learned about all of them.

Today, almost every radio or television station is on-the-air 24/7. That’s a fairly recent thing. When I got started, we signed on KMLA, the radio station in Ashdown, Arkansas, at 5:30 a.m. and signed off at midnight. I suspect the reason this was done was money. If you turned off the station for six hours, that was one guy you didn’t have to pay.

Maybe there were other reasons, but that always seemed to be the most logical.

If you were the new guy on the air staff, you almost always began your career working Sunday morning sign-on. This meant that you had to have the radio station on the air by 5:30 a.m. so that you could begin airing all of the church-sponsored programs.

While the rest of the fellas were sleeping off a Saturday night hangover, you and Mr. Coffee were at the station cueing up and playing the different church shows. They ranged from God’s News Behind The News (a syndicated message that interspersed the latest news with scriptural interpretation) to Powerline with Brother John Rivers. Powerline was a music countdown show that included current pop songs that could be played in mixed company. Most of the tunes were generic and soft rock ballads.

The most unique thing about working Sunday morning sign-on was that many of the local preachers did their shows live. Meaning, they actually came to the radio station in their suit and tie and sat behind a microphone and preached for their 15 minutes or half-hour.

Since ministers are used to having a congregation to preach to, a radio station presented somewhat of a unique situation. Their congregation was still getting ready for church. So, the only person they had to preach to was me.

Now, I was not in a suit and tie, and wasn’t exactly what you’d call presentable on Sunday morning. I usually rolled out of bed at 5:10 a.m., shoved a stick of Juicy Fruit in my mouth, put a ball cap on my head, and pulled on a pair of pants and T-shirt to go to work.

In other words, I represented a pretty good sinner. It was Sunday, I wasn’t at church, and I was underdressed. So, the ministers who came to preach live (including my pastor) always stared right at me when they preached.

The radio station control room sat at the front of the building, but between the front door and the control room was the newsroom. And the newsroom was where the pastors sat in front of a microphone to deliver their sermons.

It went something like this:

Me: “We now join Brother Jackie Adams from Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Ashdown, Arkansas, for today’s sermon. And now, Brother Adams.”

Brother Adams: “If you’re not in church today, let me encourage you to turn away from being backslidden and come visit with us.”

He looked right at me every time he said it. I don’t think it helped that I had a Marlboro Red dangling from the corner of my mouth and the smoke was wisping through my eyebrows and long hair.

There were at least five ministers who did their shows live, and each must’ve listened to the previous preacher, because they almost always seemed to include a rebuttal or retort for what the guy before them had to say.

Not a surprise when you had Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, and other assorted faiths.

But it kept me on my toes, and they got the word out for their side of things.

Where I live now, Sunday still includes radio and TV preachers, but not nearly as many as it did years ago. This week, tune in the radio and TV preachers. They’re fading from the dial.

If you really want to feel like they’re talking to you, throw on a T-shirt and ball cap. But leave out the Marlboro Reds. They’re bad for you.

© 2026 John Moore

John’s new book, Write of Passage: Volume 3, is available on Amazon. Write to John at TheCountryWriter.com.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Red Skelton. Ed Sullivan. Dean Martin. Rowan & Marrtin. The Smothers Brothers. Carol Burnett. Flip Wilson. Make the connection yet?

Variety shows. American variety shows.

From the 1940s to the 1980s, Americans were entertained by a cross-section of talent, all compacted into one hour or more of television. And every week, our RCA console TV in the house on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, was tuned in to most of the variety shows. Especially Red Skelton. My sister and I loved Red.

Red Skelton was an American comedian who made his way in entertainment through just about every medium. Radio, motion pictures, and television were all conquered by Red, and some amazing talent made it to the big time thanks to being featured on his variety show.

Many who were on Red’s program didn’t need the publicity, but that’s what made a variety show a variety show. The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Mickey Rooney, Vincent Price, and Carol Channing, were just a few of the entertainers who appeared on The Red Skelton Show.

But the weekly favorites were characters that Red came up with and performed himself. Freddie the Freeloader was a silent, yet lovable clown. Clem Kadiddlehopper, a happy, but dimwitted bumpkin. Junior, the Mean Widdle Kid, and Sheriff Deadeye, an incompetent Wild West lawman, were always a treat to watch. Regardless of what my sister and I were doing, we stopped and plopped down in front of the television to watch Red.

The Ed Sullivan Show was also a favorite. Best known for the American debut of The Beatles, Ed’s program was one of the longest-running variety shows, and included the TV debut of many other acts, such as Elvis Presley, The Jackson Five, The Doors, and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

Later, Dean Martin would host his own variety show where he famously refused to rehearse. That lack of rehearsal gave his appearance in a tuxedo, with a ubiquitous drink and cigarette, seem more like a playboy who’d walked into another part of his day rather than a weekly television program.

Dean’s skits and singing, with beautiful women at the ready, were a must-watch in 1960s America.

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In took the variety format to a whole new level. In addition to guest stars who appeared (including presidential candidate Richard Nixon), terms such as, “You bet your sweet bippy,” “Sock it to me,” “Here come da judge,” “One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies,” “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls,” and “Goodnight, Dick,” all became part of the lexicon.

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was very popular, and highly controversial. Tom and Dick Smothers played instruments and told jokes, and had great writers, including a very young Steve Martin. But poking fun at the U.S. Government and the Vietnam War didn’t fly well, and they were canceled.

One variety show that stood out was The Carol Burnett Show. With her regular cast members of Lyle Waggoner, Harvey Korman and Vicki Lawrence. Carol often welcomed Dick Van Dyke and Tim Conway as guests. Conway became a regular cast member much later in the show’s run, but his skit with the dentist who stabs himself with the numbing agent, and his ad libbing during the Mama’s Family skits are now legendary.

The Flip Wilson Show was one of the biggest surprises of the early 1970s. It’s unlikely that anyone thought a man dressing up as a woman named Geraldine, who threatened to sick her boyfriend Killer on those who disagreed with her, would have become a hit show. But it did. My mother never understood why I liked it so much.

Flip was on Thursday night and was the top show, until a new program about poor people struggling during The Depression knocked it off its perch. The Walton’s was also an unlikely hit, but it came around about the time that variety shows were running their course.

As is the case with cop shows, westerns, medical dramas, and other genres of television programs, things come to an end, and then sometimes come back around. So was the case with variety shows.

When The Carol Burnett Show ended its run in 1978, it was the last of the true variety programs. Carol and others, including Dolly Parton, The Mandrell Sisters, and The Smothers Brothers tried to revive the format later, but all attempts fell flat.

But just as cop shows were big in the 70s and fell out of favor, they now have made a big return with CSI, NCIS, and others. Maybe there’s still hope for the variety show.

A cross-section of talent, without the politics, would be most welcome.

© 2026 John Moore

John’s new book, Write of Passage: Volume 3, is available on Amazon. Write to John at TheCountryWriter.com.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

The City of Texarkana dates its official beginnings to 1873. Like many cities and towns of the era, railroads brought people, who brought businesses. The same was true for Ashdown, Arkansas, my hometown, located just north of Texarkana.

The railroad connected people. It brought the mail, needed supplies, and communication. In the 1960s, another communication system came to Texarkana: cable television. The installers strung cable down the utility poles until many homes had the opportunity to connect. By the early 1980s, Ashdown folks also had cable.

Today, we take fast and easy communication for granted. We can call anyone instantly, anywhere in the world. Until cable, 24-hour news was unheard of.

Before cable, my family watched the latest on the Vietnam War on the nightly news. By the latest, I mean a few days old.

The news reader had that distinct news-sounding voice he’d use to introduce the footage. “Here we see this newsreel, shot three days ago in Da Nang…”

The advent of cable television brought us together in a way similar to what radio did in the 1920s, and television in the early 1950s.

Most of the television networks were offshoots of the old radio networks. ABC, NBC, and CBS, strung together with local radio stations.

When you see The Waltons gathered around their cathedral-style radio, that’s pretty accurate. Families gathered in front of their set for entertainment and news, just as they would later in front of the television.

We had three television channels in our area. Local programming during the day and national programming at night. Cable TV changed that in a big way.

Early cable programming was mostly channels imported from the nearest large city. For us in Ashdown, it was the same network affiliates we had, but the channels were from Dallas. This included PBS, which was something we did not have in our market.

PBS shows included Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, This Old House, and Nova. They were excellent and eye-opening. They showed us things we hadn’t seen before. The kids learned. The adults learned too.

One of the most impressive cable channels was Home Box Office, or HBO. At the time, it was the only 24-hour movie channel with no commercials. Until HBO, the only way you could watch a movie without advertising was to go to a movie theater.

The first time I saw HBO was at a buddy’s house. Heaven Can Wait, with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, was on. A great movie.

Satellite dishes were a popular option for television viewing, but as broadcasters began encoding their channels on satellite transmissions, cable television became the preferred option.

My dad finally subscribed to cable, so we could watch all of the family’s favorite shows with a guarantee that the signal would be crystal clear and reliable. With an antenna, you were at the mercy of the weather when it came to watching your shows. Weather could affect the signals.

Cable also changed the way we watched. Instead of checking a newspaper or waiting for a favorite program to come on, we could flip through channels and find something at almost any hour. There was a new sense of possibility in that. A movie, a ballgame, or a program from another city was suddenly just a button away.

News went from being three days old to live.

One morning, a new channel called CNN was covering a routine speech by President Reagan. They were still covering the event when the president was leaving the building to get into his limousine. On live TV, President Reagan was shot by an attempted assassin.

Just 20 years earlier, President Kennedy was murdered, but the only footage of the tragedy was taken by a civilian. The film had to be developed and shared later.

Cable television grew into more news networks, live weather channels, and very specialized programming. A storm approaching our area could be tracked on television, while news from around the world appeared as it happened. For families who had once waited days for footage, that was a remarkable change.

Today, we have channels for food, history, biographies, and much more. All of which started with cable.

In just a few decades, we went from three grainy channels to YouTube, where we can make our own TV programming if we want.

It’s easy to take for granted how connected we are today. It’s debatable whether we’re better or worse off for the advancement, but one thing is certain: we no longer have to wait three days for the news.

Today, in regard to transportation and communication, cable has just about gone the way of the railroad. Fiber optics and streaming are how we stay connected.

With the coming of AI, who knows what’s next. But one thing is certain. Cable is one of the big steps that got us where we are, and will get us where we’re going.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

It was the 1970s, and my uncle was behind the wheel. His 1969 Cadillac Convertible was a true land yacht. Long and red, it easily carried eight of us through the streets of downtown Detroit.

Not one person noticed us.

Drive down the street today in a 1969 Cadillac Convertible and everyone notices. Do it in downtown Detroit today and you likely won’t make it home.

Cars used to be fun to drive. They had their own identity. And their identity rubbed off on your own.

If a Chrysler came down the road, you knew it was a Chrysler. The same was true for a Ford, Chevy, or Oldsmobile. Now, all cars look the same. Boxes with wheels.

On a hot summer day in 1978, the back half of me was hanging out of the passenger side of my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, while the front half was wedged under the dash. I’d saved enough to put new 6×9 speakers in the back deck and was hooking them up to my new, in-dash 8-track AM/FM radio.

My sister came out of the house and, for whatever reason, took a picture of me. Whenever I run across it, I remember what cars were like then.

In Ashdown, Arkansas, every teenager was known for what they drove. I was an Oldsmobile guy. Doug drove a Pontiac. Scotty had a Ford. Kirk preferred Chevrolets. You spotted each of them from a long way away.

Flashing your lights meant, “Meet me in the Pizza Hut parking lot.” For those who’ve never known a world without a cell phone, there was a time when people found ways to communicate without them. Blinking your headlights was one of those options.

Pasture parties were the preferred way to spend time en masse with friends. Usually, it was a friend’s parents’ out-of-town property, and often they did not know we were using it. Few nefarious things went on. The worst was typically beer and cigarettes.

But the cars of the era were central to this type of American teen activity. Most of the vehicles we drove were over a ton of rolling Detroit steel. You could recline on your hood and windshield, stare at the stars, and discuss the virtues of the new albums by Led Zeppelin, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, or AC/DC.

Whoever arrived to the party first usually controlled the music. Their choices normally ruled the remainder of the evening.

If you wanted to start an argument, you’d claim your favorite band was the best. Often, the discussion would lead to someone sliding off the hood of their car, digging through the tape box in the back seat, inserting a different selection in their tape deck and cranking it up.

This is where those 6×9 speakers in the back became important. If their sound system was louder than yours, you lost. They could drown out what you had playing, which meant you lost your dominance, even if you’d arrived first and had been controlling the tunes.

If we were taking a road trip, vehicle selection boiled down to room and comfort. Whoever had inherited their grandmother’s station wagon, Chrysler Imperial, or Mercury Grand Marquis was almost always chosen as the driver. We’d all pitch in on gas, but the larger, more comfortable car was the winner.

Sure, we’d have preferred to be seen in a Cutlass, Firebird, Chevelle, or Mustang, but those held fewer friends and, with the exception of the Cutlass, never road as well as a car that was so long and heavy it almost had to be taken to an airport to turn it around. And, if you’re out of town, you almost never ran into anyone you knew, so you didn’t feel the need to be riding in a cool car.

Summer trips to Lake DeGray for swimming and boating, a drive to Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport for a concert, or an excursion to the Dallas area to go to Six Flags were common. And the cars we drove were important to where we went.

Few foreign cars, save the occasional Volkswagen, were around. We all worked on our own vehicles, so even if they’d been available, it’s doubtful any of us would have selected one. They were metric. And all we knew about metric was that our third-grade teacher had told us we’d all be using the metric system by the time we were exiting high school.

What did happen is cars have changed. And in my opinion, not for the better. Cars today are small with little identity. You can’t tell one from the other when they’re coming down the road.

But you can a red 1969 Cadillac Convertible. And we still aren’t on the metric system.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

The phrase, “We were poor, but didn’t know it,” likely was based on the delicious and inexpensive food most Southerners ate growing up.

My father told me we only ate the finest, center-cut baloney. The reality was, we were so poor, our baloney didn’t have a first name.

There were two camps of baloney cooks: leave the baloney slice whole and let it turn into a bowl shape while frying, or cut slits on the outer rim so it would lay flatter in the skillet.

My mom didn’t cut slits, but it always came out an even black. Add some mayo on white bread and Fritos to that, and you had a meal.

Another inexpensive, yet excellent tasting dish was biscuits and gravy. It was inconceivable that a young lady would leave the house to marry a fella and not know how to make biscuits and gravy. For that matter, it was inconceivable that a fella would leave home without that ability.

Regular gravy is a Southern tradition, but in specific parts of the South, chocolate gravy is a delicacy.

Our family has Aunt Maude to thank for the chocolate gravy recipe that has been passed down for over 100 years. Aunt Maude was adopted as a young girl and from what I’m told, she knew how to make it when she joined us.

Made with Hershey’s Cocoa, butter, sugar, and (if available) fresh milk from the barn, chocolate gravy was dessert for breakfast.

Tear open a cat head biscuit, cover each side with real butter (margarine was grounds for excommunication) and after the butter melts, cover the biscuit with chocolate gravy.

Another inexpensive dish that was a frequent flier on our Formica dinette table was salmon patties. The folks who considered themselves better than salmon patties called them salmon croquettes. Regardless of what they were called, they were made the same way.

A cheap can of salmon, an egg, saltine crackers, onion, mayo, salt and pepper, were mixed into the shape of hamburger patties and then fried in bacon drippings in the skillet. Fried potatoes were served with them.

For that matter, fried potatoes were served with everything.

At our house, fried potatoes were served at every single meal. So were biscuits and white gravy. They were filling, and they were good. Very good. And my dad expected all three to always be there.

Mom could vary whatever else she wanted on the menu, but if we sat down to eat and there were no potatoes, gravy, or biscuits, everyone would have just assumed that the store was out of something that was part of the recipe.

Hindsight, I now know that a sack of potatoes was one of the least expensive things you could buy that could be stretched on-and-on-and-on.

I’ve often said that if I were limited to just one food from now on, it would be the potato. It has to be one of the most versatile foods we have. Baked, fried, sliced, scalloped; heck, even the peels are sold in restaurants.

I was taught how to peel potatoes at my first real job at County Seat Fried Chicken restaurant. The first time I saw potato skins on the menu at a restaurant, I was puzzled. But someone pointed out that fried pigskins were a Southern mainstay. They had a point.

For dessert, a can of peaches and a can of Pet Milk are hard to beat. Pour a few peach slices and their syrup into a bowl, then pour a little Pet Milk over them and you have a tasty end to any meal. My grandmother never called dessert, “dessert,” she just would say, “do you want something sweet?”

The answer was always yes. And if we were lucky, it was canned peaches with some Pet Milk poured over them.

Much of what Southerners still want to eat today is rooted in the inexpensive dishes on which we grew up. I still love a fried baloney sandwich, biscuits and gravy, chocolate gravy, and salmon patties. They were what allowed our mothers to stay home and raise us on dad’s salary. I argue that family model is still the better one. Even if you need Lipitor later.

If you’ve never had chocolate gravy, I’ve included Aunt Maude’s recipe.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

My dad hated holes in the walls. So, when mom wanted something hung up, he complained.

“This is just another way for bugs and critters to get in the house,” he’d say. And he wasn’t wrong. I woke up one morning in my bedroom in the house on Locust Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, and a small garter snake was in the middle of the floor.

That snake got in, but not because of any holes I had caused. But I did put holes in the wall. One wall.

I grew up in the era of posters. All kinds of posters. The south wall of my room was covered with them. Each poster caused many holes in the sheetrock from the thumbtacks that I used.

Farrah Fawcett, Led Zeppelin, KISS, Boston, and several posters I won at the county fair, looked back at me for years as I did homework, listened to music, or just stared at the ceiling and contemplated life.

Kids now have their electronic devices to see anything they want. In the 70s, you had to go to a department store to buy an image.

Farrah Fawcett was popular then. I cannot emphasize enough how popular. I had the now-iconic poster of her in a red bathing suit, sitting in front of what looked like a Native American blanket. Two takeaways from that poster: Her smile, and it must’ve been cold when the picture was taken.

Teenage boys then had a couple of major influences: Girls, and music. I was a fan of country and rock, but there were few, if any posters of country music stars. But rock bands? Plenty of options.

The English group Led Zeppelin was huge. They were the first band to sell more concert tickets than the Beatles. And their albums sold in the millions. I loved them. I still do.

The Zeppelin poster I had showed the singer out front, straining to hit a note, with the musicians behind him in deep concentration.

I started playing guitar when I was eight because I wanted to be a star. If they had called me to join Led Zeppelin, I would have immediately quit my job at the Piggly Wiggly. Alas, the call never came.

KISS was an American rock band whose members dressed as different characters. I had a poster of them that was a concert photo. Teen boys loved them. Dads? Not so much. My dad had additional words he added to their name.

The band Boston exploded onto the music in the mid-70s with their debut album. They were one of the first big studio bands. Meaning, their first album was crafted by musicians in a studio. They didn’t actually have a performing act when they started, so the poster I had was of their album cover.

The rest of the real estate on my wall was covered by black light posters. Black lights were actually purple, and the light reacted in a neat way with whatever it was they put in the colors on the posters. I had no idea at the time, but they were very popular with the stoners, who also liked lava lamps.

I won the black light posters at the ring toss game at the fair in Texarkana. I had to get a ring over a cone to score one. The carney running the game kept saying no one ever won that many. I didn’t know if he was trying to make me feel good, or if he was trying to get more business by saying that loudly.

One poster showed the coyote actually catching the roadrunner. Another was the Keep on Truckin’ image. A cartoon guy who had his thumb up and was strutting with one foot prominently forward, on his way to somewhere.

My posters all came down one day when a girl I liked said she wanted to redecorate my room. Farrah, Zeppelin, KISS, Boston, and the roadrunner and coyote; all were replaced by wallpaper. The girl was happy, my dad was happy, but I felt robbed.

I wasn’t really ready for that part of my youth to be so quickly supplanted by adulthood. But, as is often the case, change comes when you least expect it.

Being the oldest cousin, like most of my other things, my posters were dispersed to my younger kin. I don’t know who got them, but if you’re reading this, dig them out or take them off your wall. They’re now antiques.

Me? I got over the loss and moved on. From everything except that snake. We’re still looking for him.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Early in life, I learned that adults had their own language. They spoke English, but it was interspersed with phrases that had been handed down for so long that for the most part, no one really knew their original or real meaning.

My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any other old person (over age 20) could say a great deal with a few words.

Sometimes it was advice. Sometimes it was a warning. Occasionally it was a warning disguised as advice, which was the kind you paid closest attention to.

“Don’t get too big for your britches” was one of the first I remember. Other than overindulging in Twinkies, I had no idea how someone could get too big for his britches. Mine were already too big in the waist and too short in the legs. But I knew the phrase meant I had started acting like I knew something the grown-ups did not. In our house, that was a position best held quietly.

“Were you born in a barn?” was another one. It was usually asked when somebody left the door open.

No person in the family had been born in a barn (although I had my suspicions about one of the cousins), and I do not believe a barn was under serious consideration. It simply meant close the door. Heat and air-conditioning were not supposed to be shared with the whole neighborhood.

Then there was the champion of all childhood discussions: “Because I said so.” A child could ask why he had to eat his vegetables, come in before dark, or quit running through the house. The answer did not change. “Because I said so.”

All kids on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, thought that “Because I said so,” really meant that the adult had run out of reasons. Now I know that it meant that the adults had neither the time nor the interest in preparing a legal brief for a ten-year-old. It was less an explanation than a closing argument.

Then there’s, “I’ll give you something to cry about.” My personal favorite.

It never made sense to me to offer a reason to cry to someone who already had found a reason to cry. Why would you need another reason? Especially from the person who was completely in charge of whether you cried or not. It really meant that the crying had gone on long enough for everybody in the room to appreciate the performance. So, stop already.

My mom made banana pudding in a green glass bowl. We knew it was going to be banana pudding because that was the only thing she ever made in that bowl. But the reason for the banana pudding varied.

She might make it for us, for church, or as a peacemaker. If there was a small rift between two people she knew, the pudding served as a meringued medium. A détente dessert, if you will. It’s hard to stay mad at someone when you’re together eating banana pudding.

That was when someone might say, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” I never saw anybody catch a fly with either one, but the point was clear. Unhappy people were happified through banana pudding in a green, glass bowl.

From the kitchen we now go to the aft section of a Buick.

My sister and I could turn the back seat of a car into a small international incident. Mom assigned us separate sides of the car in the same way that a boxing referee pushes two pugilists into their own corners.

If the trouble continued, we’d hear, “Don’t make me come back there.”

That was not a threat to abandon operating the motor vehicle and join us in the back; it meant that she could discipline us both while continuing to drive.

If I protested about having to do a particularly unpleasant chore, my dad would remind me, “You are the low man on the totem pole.” It meant that because I was the kid, I was taking out the trash.

This phrase became ironic when I later learned that totem-pole figures are not always arranged low-to-high. In other words, in some tribes, the person at the bottom of the pole was considered the most important person of the group. But when you were standing by the garbage can, it did, in fact, mean exactly what dad said it meant.

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” was difficult to follow. It also seemed to contradict, “Because I said so,” which is a curt and unpleasant response.

The older I get, the more I understand that those phrases were not just shortcuts for grown-ups. They were a way of passing along common sense, respect, thrift, and responsibility.

As it turned out, the proof was in the pudding.

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By John Moore | TheCountryWriter.com

Scouting was once as common for kids as Cap’n Crunch and Post Toasties. Learning how to tie knots, set up a tent and campsite, and earning merit badges, consumed much of a Southern boy’s or girl’s time.

Often, your mom and dad were the den’s mother and trip advisor. Which meant you not only had to learn everything put in front of you, you always had to be on your best behavior.

Much like it was summarily announced to me at the ripe old age of six that I’d be playing little league baseball; it was also announced that I was about to become a Cub Scout.

All I knew about scouting was that Beaver Cleaver was a Cub Scout and that gave him license to wear a cool uniform and cap.

We had weekly meetings at the Ashdown City Library, which at that time was located on the second floor of an old building downtown. The first floor, which was halfway buried underground, housed the water and police departments.

We learned this by hanging from the second-floor balcony and staring through the windows. The signs for each department clearly marked who sat where, even though it appeared to be a shared space.

My mom and Ricky Walraven’s mom were the den mothers. They used a scouting manual to guide us through the first step, second step, and so on, to become bona fide Cub Scouts. The first step was to learn the promise:

“I, John, promise to do my best
, to do my duty to God and my country,
 to be square, and
 to obey the law of the pack.”

We always started each meeting with the promise.

Strands of rope were brought in by the boys who lived on farms and we used them to learn to tie knots.

The square knot joined two ropes of about the same size. The bowline made a loop that stayed loose. Two half hitches were what we used to secure a rope to a post or tree. There were many other knots we learned, and most were used when we went camping.

This is where the dads came into the picture. The men would load us all up in their vehicles and haul us to the woods. My dad drove a 1952 Chevrolet 5-window pickup. The men rode in the front and we rode in the back with our tents and gear.

No one thought anything of a load of unsecured Cub Scouts going down the road at 60 miles per hour back then. And it was awesome.

We earned our badges by gathering firewood, building a campfire, identifying plants, fishing for our dinner, setting up our tent and bedding, and listening to the men tell scary stories right before we went to bed.

We didn’t actually get a badge for listening to scary stories. We did learn about the monster that lived somewhere near our camping area, and the ghost of the boy the monster had run off with because he wasn’t prepared properly and hadn’t earned all of his merit badges.

We made toast on a stick. Learned to use a compass. How to sharpen our Cub Scout knife. And why putting others ahead of ourselves was always the right choice.

When we weren’t camping, the den’s mothers and dads took us on field trips to learn the history of those who settled the area where we now lived.

One of my favorite field trips was going to Old Washington, Arkansas.

It’s called, Historic Washington State Park, and it’s near Hope in southwest Arkansas.

Washington was founded in 1824 and became an important stop on the Southwest Trail to Texas. During the Civil War, it served as the Confederate state capital of Arkansas from 1863 to 1865 after Union forces captured Little Rock.

It’s particularly known for its blacksmithing history. According to local tradition, Washington blacksmith James Black made an early version of the famous Bowie knife for James Bowie, who later died at the Alamo.

Like Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Old Washington is kept in period condition. Both Colonial Williamsburg and Old Washington preserve a historic community rather than just a single building.

I made it to Webelos and Boy Scouts, but didn’t make Eagle Scout, which is the pinnacle of Scouting for boys. Our oldest son did, though. And what he learned in Scouting shines through today. He is self-reliant, creative in a pinch, and is always helping someone else.

I’m unsure why participation in Scouting isn’t at the level that it used to be, but what Scouting taught and still teaches is worth involving our young people.

Because promising to do our best, to do our duty, to God and our country, to be square, and to obey the law of the pack, isn’t a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

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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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