Every Christmas Eve we invite children from the neighborhood into our home to watch a swarthy Jordanian man dance to the rhythm of a marching band. A tradition I fear will not survive us.
Category Archives: Miscellany
The Last Cigarette
“I’ve smoked well over a hundred thousand cigarettes in my life, and each one of those cigarettes meant something to me. I even enjoyed a few of them.”
Smokers will get this essay (an excerpt from an upcoming book: “Nicotine,” by Gregor Hens). Not sure the rest of will/can.
The Hard Stuff
I never developed a taste for “spirits” but have a hard-to-explain fascination with the endless variety of hooch I see in supermarkets and convenience stores. If there’s no one in line behind me I will sometimes quiz the clerk.
Q: Do all of these sell?
A: Yes. This is primo, point-of-purchase shelf space so they wouldn’t stock it if it didn’t sell. (Even Fireball?!)
Q: Who buys those little “airplane” bottles? And why?
A: Lots of folks. For the drive home. One clerk said she’s seen customers drink on on the way out the door.
In my naive, never-been-a-drinker way, these suggest a “lower class” of drinker than the guy with a bottle of single malt in his wet bar in the den. Maybe there’s danger implicit in this photo that holds my gaze.
Prison Stairs
Melody Men Quartet
Hamra’s Department Store
The photos below were taken by Johnny “Mack” Reeder, probably in the early 50’s but perhaps as early as 1948 or 1949 (maybe a vintage car buff can help me narrow that down). This just off the “courthouse square” in Kennett, MO. The first photo is facing West.
I remember Hamra’s from my youth (born in 1948) but I’m hard-pressed to tell you exactly what they sold. Clothing and fabrics, obviously, and I recall a shoe store next to the main store shown in these photos. There were several stores like this in “downtown” Kennett. Graber’s, James Kahn’s, Penney’s and some I can’t remember.
I don’t think this was a “grand opening” so I’m guessing this was some sort of special sale. The photographer was one of the original employees of KBOA (the local radio station) and might have been recording the big crowd that resulted from advertising.
The third photo speaks to the rural flavor of our small town. Lots of bib overalls. I remember hearing stories about hundreds of people flooding into town on a Saturday to purchase supplies for the farms that made up the local economy in those days.
Cigar Box
In a world of cheap plastic and cardboard, it feels good to have these around. I’ll keep my external hard drives in this one.
Prairie Garden Trust Overlook
The name really says it all: a prairie garden. In the middle of Missouri, about 20 minutes from my house. My friends Henry and Lorna manage this treasure and while I’ve taken many walks with Henry, I’ve never seen this magnificent view. Used irresponsibly, drones can be a pain in the ass. But they’re here to stay and we’ll be seeing our world differently from now on.
50th high school class reunion
In a few weeks I’ll make the five hour drive to the little town where I grew up for the 50 year reunion of the Kennett High School Class of 1966. I attended the 10 year reunion and vowed I’d never go to another. And didn’t. But there’s a strange (morbid?) appeal to the 50th. Like stumbling across the finish line of a marathon, throwing up and crapping your pants, yet elated to have completed the race.
I suppose this qualifies as a “right of passage,” and there won’t be that many more. Of the approximately 150 people in our class, 33 (22%) have been called to the office of The Great Principal’s Office in the Sky.
I’ve been fantasizing ways to make this event more fun: A prize for the most marriages/divorces? A little trophy for most number of times arrested/years served? Or a plaque for Best (and Worst) Cosmetic Surgery?
I’m not on Facebook so I have not kept up with most of my classmates. I don’t remember much about the 10 year reunion. I think that is the one where you show off your second/trophy wife and hand out business cards with titles of success. Those vanities will, I’m sure, have faded. Replaced by… what? The unspoken reality that this is the last time we’ll see most of these people. A bon voyage party for the Great Beyond.
Clean up your computer desktop
There’s a simple, easy solution to your nasty-ass desktop.