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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.

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.

Enjoying this column? Let us know. Support your local community newspaper — subscribe to The Sachse News.