Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898
Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898
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When writing advertising copy, I sometimes find myself desperately searching for a zinger of a tag line --and settling for trite admonitions such as “Make this the best hunting season ever” or “Make this the best summer vacation ever.” I despise such capitulations to deadlines, because listeners with terminal illnesses, maxed-out credit cards or fruitless marriage counseling sessions may perceive the sentiments as glib or clueless. Never is the situation more danger-fraught than at Christmas. A...
Saint Nick wasn’t the only man in a red suit that magical Christmas season 50 years ago. On Saturday December 23, 1972, I walked from my house to Sharp’s Drive-In Market and splurged on four 20-cent comic books. One of my selections was heavily influenced by an ad appearing in DC Comics: “Coming in December…DC’s Christmas gift to you! Shazam is coming!” I could scarcely wait to rush home and open my copy of “Shazam!” #1. Unfortunately, my gut reaction upon seeing the interior artwork was, “What...
It has been years since my family last dealt with the “pictures with Santa” pageantry, but Saint Nick impersonators remain an integral part of Christmas for Americans. Parents feel compelled to honor the tradition of dumping tiny tots in Santa’s lap, even if they’re not emotionally ready for the experience. I wish I hadn’t sold my Child Psychology textbook back to the college bookstore, or I would explain why kids who think nothing of sticking a fork in an electrical outlet or inviting...
“Do you mind if we have leftovers?” When my wife poses that question, I always answer, “No, that’s fine,” because (a) I genuinely enjoy leftovers, (b) I don’t want to cause extra trouble for her and (c) I can’t afford the airline tickets to transport a Tupperware container of six-day-old broccoli to all those “starving children on the other side of the world who would give their right arm for a fraction of the food you and your siblings are wasting.” Unless I redeem my “frequent guilt t...
Please pardon me, but I am always overcome by mawkish sentimentality at this time of year. I cannot contain my gratitude. I am thankful for a paycheck and sunsets and modern plumbing and mobility and rainbows and warm clothing and good friends and conjunctions and… I am thankful that I can do anything you can do better, I can do anything better than you – except get $%&# show tunes out of my head. I am thankful for eight-month tick-and-flea collars, because the traumatic monthly sprayings do not...
My cousin’s husband owns a funeral home, so I’m anxious to hear his take on a front-page article from the November 4 “Wall Street Journal.” According to the article, morticians are innovating ways to put the “fun” in funeral (including burial plot raffles and “open house” family events featuring food, live music and bouncy houses) – or maybe it was putting the “monument” in monumentally screwed up ideas! I get those mixed up. The article talked about undertakers enticing their potential custo...
Murphy’s Law being what it is, whether you’re talking about a surprise party, a romantic getaway or visiting an acquaintance in the hospital, good intentions don’t always pan out. The same goes for the intention to carry out a proper observation of Veterans Day. Sometimes work/family obligations, ill health or inclement weather stand in the way of attending a public ceremony honoring our nation’s veterans. “Maybe next year” is the lament of too many of us. Imagine my delight when a Google search...
I’m proud of my son Gideon for doing his civic duty and casting a vote for the first time. (This comes mere months after he did his civic duty and signed up for Selective Service. And, would you believe it, not one of the candidates for dogcatcher was remotely prepared to answer his questions about their position on reinstating the draft! What has become of the true statesmen???) It was an especially meaningful milestone because local early voting takes place at the multi-use building that forme...
Perhaps it’s partly because my mother owns a huge antique desk from Milky Way Farm (the former estate of Franklin C. Mars, founder of Mars Candies), but I pay keen attention to the annual flurry of “filler” news items about Halloween candy. “Prices up or down? What’s hot and what’s not? Should I call my manual laborer cousin and rub this sweet gig in his face or not?” (Think of the perennial stories as being like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, except with cavities, tummy aches a...
“Were you raised in a barn?” I never had the legendary Mrs. Montgomery as a teacher; but she was a senior class adviser and I needed her input on a school program script, so I made the rookie mistake of assuming her wide-open door meant I could forego the formality of knocking. Thus, the piercing glare and the intimidating inquiry about sharing living quarters with cattle, swine and the occasional hobo (who was presumably condemned to a vagrant lifestyle because he insisted on CHEWING GUM IN...
Have you heard of the “quiet quitting” trend that is being breathlessly reported on social media? Quiet quitting refers to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. Quiet quitters continue to draw a paycheck, but they have finally seen the folly of arriving early, staying late, attending non-mandatory meetings and the like. (“This is an accounting firm! How come I never questioned why there are barges to tote and bal...
At my day job, we recently underwent a major upgrade of our security cameras. Yes, shoplifting has gotten bad enough and technology has gotten good enough that we have made this major investment. Retailers have come to the sad realization that they face losses both from the traditional lowlife thieves and the thrill-seeking youngsters who rationalize, “Hey, the store has insurance!” (Apparently these youngsters have seen enough neighbors with wheelbarrows of free zucchini to assume that ins...
My brother and I rarely saw eye-to-eye about TV viewing choices in our teens and twenties, but we were both among the handful of people who imbibed the hilarity of a sitcom that NBC unleashed upon an unresponsive world on September 30, 1982. You may remember "Cheers" as the hit show (set in a Boston pub) that ran for 11 seasons, won 28 Emmy awards, drew 93 million viewers for its finale and spawned the equally long-running spin-off "Frasier"; but "last call" almost came early, as the show ranked...
So, having earned an associate’s degree from our local community college, my son Gideon is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mechatronic engineering from my old alma mater. This only child who had never really spent the night away from home is cautiously adapting to dormitory life. (“Dormitory”: from the Latin for “Who needs Latin? We have panties to raid and fire extinguishers to discharge!”) So far, he and his roommate are coexisting amicably; but I have seen enough “roommate from hell” st...
I didn’t watch all of them from the very beginning, but several significant TV shows debuted in the fall of 1972. “The Bob Newhart Show” starred Bob Newhart (who turned 93 on September 5) as psychologist Bob Hartley. Bob’s trademark stammer didn’t seem all that noticeable to me. I was just starting junior high school and being at a loss for words was par for the course around the ninth-grade girls. I imagined lying face-down on Bob’s couch to hide the zits. If Bob had added a P.E. climbing ro...
When does a 500th anniversary require an asterisk? If you’re a fan of trivia and myth-busting, you’ve doubtless heard umpteen repetitions of “George Washington didn’t really have wooden teeth,” “Napoleon wasn’t short,” “Lemmings don’t commit mass suicide” and “Ferdinand Magellan didn’t sail all the way around the world.” Sure enough, Magellan was killed two years into the three-year voyage to circumnavigate the globe. (That probably saved him from an ugly scene at home. Before he set sail, h...
Believe it or not, August 31 is the 25th anniversary of the traffic accident that robbed the world of the effervescent Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana was a distant, distant cousin (my great-great grandfather Tyree married Mary Ann Spencer a century before I was born); but even without that connection, I feel compelled to dedicate this week’s column to drawing a few lessons from her too-brief life. The philosophy “Seemed like a good idea at the time” sums up so much of her public career. In re...
“Anxious parents are no longer allowing their kids to go to slumber parties,” announced a blurb in the August 16 “New York Post.” Slumber parties are not usually one of the top subjects on my mind in the morning (“Got my keys, got my snack, got my wallet, got a great ‘is your refrigerator running?’ joke to share…”), so I was surprised to learn that 12.3 million parents participate in the #NoSleepovers movement online. (Boy, I’m old. I remember when Arte Johnson popularized “Blow in my ear and...
My family made a recent day trip to a neighboring state, so I decided this week’s column should be a tip of the hat to those oases of the interstate highway system, the state welcome centers. Whether you’re a vacationer, traveling businessperson, truckdriver or zip-across-the-state-line shopper, welcome centers are a great place to “stretch your legs,” “wet your whistle,” “get the lay of the land” and discover other activities that keep the quotation-marks industry trouncing the brackets indust...
“Memories/Light the corners of my mind…” – as sung by Barbra Streisand. While grocery shopping with my mother in the 1970s, I enjoyed peeking at the “Golden Age” Sunday comics in “Good Old Days” magazine and developing an appreciation of the cartoon antics my father remembered from his boyhood. In the early 1980s, as part of a school magazine fundraiser, my (then-future) wife wheedled her grandfather into purchasing a much-enjoyed subscription to “Reminisce.” I am overjoyed that these two maga...
According to the National Gardening Association, the number of households growing their own vegetables, fruit and other foods has tripled since 2008. (Coincidentally, the number of households stocking up on earplugs to keep from hearing neighbors brag about growing their own vegetables, fruit and other foods has also tripled since 2008. But I digress.) Since last year alone, multi-family community gardens have increased by 22 percent. Such gardens would spread even faster if organizers could...
According to the Washington Examiner, 2022 has handed New York City an alarming spike in citizen complaints about outdoor odors (“I hope you appreciate me doing my civic duty. It’s not easy to use a cellphone to make a 311 call and publicly urinate at the same time. Oops…sorry, graffiti.”) Mayor Eric Adams has promised a new garbage bin program, brand-new street sweepers and additional restrooms; but I wonder how committed he truly is. Adams is on the record opining that the main thing HE smells...
Trust me when I declare that I am not competing for sympathy against folks suffering from cancer, blocked arteries, diabetes or other serious ailments. I do nonetheless think that my body is out to get me. And not just with the chronic aches, pains and wrinkles that accompany normal aging. No, my body perpetrates fiendishly clever assaults on my comfort and dignity. (Misery loves company, so you may be yelling, “Too much information!” as this essay assaults your own comfort and dignity.) I am...
Believe it or not, my wife and I haven’t attended a concert in nearly 25 years. (Elton John’s January 1998 appearance at Nashville Arena was our last outing.) I realize such an admission strikes a discordant note with most “normal” people. “Don’t you want to be able to say that you saw (fill in the blank) in person?” Get serious. Most of the applause at concerts is lavished upon songs celebrating substance abuse, promiscuity, adultery or anti-establishment violence. If you can approve the o...
The front page of the July 8, 1947 “Roswell (New Mexico) Daily Record” seized the American imagination with the headline “RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Captures Flying Saucer.” That announcement added fuel to the saucer craze of summer 1947 (“Keep your raccoon coats, grandpa – we’ve got Martians!”); but to the disappointment of believers in extraterrestrial visitors, the military issued a retraction the very next day, asserting that the debris found by rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel was merely a...
