Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898
Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898
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When I searched online for potential Halloween-column topics, I encountered innumerable headlines screaming about fun, easy, last-minute homemade Halloween costumes. Who are all the people in desperate need of fun, easy, last-minute homemade Halloween costumes? Did some poor loser overlook all the Hobby Lobby displays and simply forget about the spooky festivities? (“You mean they’re having Halloween again THIS year? I thought it was every 12 years like the .., waddayacallem … presi...
“Are ya haaawngry?” In the 90s, that question by the late Harold Rowland became a running gag after church every Sunday, as he inquired where I, my wife and my parents would be eating. In the future, many people may answer “Are ya haaawngry?” with a shrug and a muffled “Meh.” Investors and food-industry executives are grinding their teeth over anti-diabetic drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy. The drugs are being used off-label for weight loss and appetite suppression, and so far they seem to be...
“Where’s your Bayer?” I vividly remember that question from my high school job working in a convenience market in my Tennessee hometown. A buxom young lady from out-of-town posed the query and I helpfully directed her to the section of the store showcasing our aspirin, bandages, Merthiolate, etc. She sauntered to the shelves I suggested. Alas, she searched in vain. I clarified the directions. The “last year’s Easter Egg” aura increased. I finally asked, “WHAT was it you said you were looking...
National Newspaper Week (October 1-7) compels me to acknowledge my journalistic catastrophe of fifth grade. Based on my passion for reading Nashville’s two dailies, Miss Bunch handed me the plum assignment of launching a newspaper for our class. I joyously composed articles of my own and proofread the contributions of classmates. Alas, my mechanical ineptitude reared its ugly head and for the life of me, I couldn’t operate the mimeograph! So the project died without its first issue hitting the...
Hot peppers bring tears to my eyes, but so does a family anecdote from my young adulthood. I was living with my parents and slept during the day because I worked graveyard shift. One day my mother and brother brought home some pork barbecue for lunch. They pounced on the delicacy, chortling because I was missing out. (We’re a quasi-functional family, okay?) They should not have accepted the “hot” version of the sauce. Bypassing “4 alarm,” my mother’s mouth went straight to DEFCON 1. Her tongue...
So, now the fuzzy purple critter isn’t the only “grimace” I’ll associate with the McDonald’s chain. “I’m lovin’ it” was assuredly not my gut-level reaction when I read of a 10-year corporate plan to phase out self-serving soda machines in all the restaurants and require customers to request (grovel for) refills at the counter. Consumers should have suspected beverage stations were endangered when one of last year’s Happy Meals contained the proverb “Anything worth doing is worth dragging out fo...
“So, Dan – what are you doing tonight?” After 40-plus years, I can still hear one of my best friends from MTSU asking that dreaded question. No matter how many homework assignments, romantic entanglements and writing deadlines occupied my plate, Jack would invariably cajole me into some series of nerdy antics. I have felt guilty over the decades. Family responsibilities and work responsibilities (and let’s face it – channel-surfing responsibilities) ensured that (a) I drifted away from Jack...
When I was five years old and my father worked for a subdivision developer, the Tyree family was giddily comparing floorplans for constructing a new house on a wooded lot next to our crowded domicile. My mother still owns the wooded lot, but twists and turns of fate (involving two relocations) saw to it that we never built that dream house. And yet, I have no regrets about appreciating a little elbow room. Alas, an article in the Wall Street Journal reveals the impact of spiraling labor costs, s...
Yes, nearly 60 years after discovering “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” I still watch the classic sitcom; but some of the punchlines haven’t held up particularly well. Or maybe I’m the one who hasn’t held up so well. You may recall that gag writer Buddy Sorrell (played by Morey Amsterdam) always made longsuffering “Alan Brady Show” producer Mel Cooley the foil of his rapid-fire baldness jokes. The zingers were HI-larious -- until my early thirties when I abruptly discovered that my luxurious hai...
I realize such headgear has fallen out of style in our self-esteem-obsessed culture, but maybe I should belatedly don a dunce cap. You see, one of my first columns (nearly 25 years ago) was a snarky dismissal of the nascent homeschooling movement. I know at least two nice families who are homeschooling this year, so I wish to offer my apologies. Granted, I, my wife, our son, our parents and our siblings were all products of the traditional public school system. (I didn’t use the term ...
I’ll never get over what the COVID-19 pandemic did to the Ollie’s discount chain. Pre-COVID, on my way to the restroom while shopping, I always sought out the coffee pot that announced sentiments to the effect of “We’ve had a pretty good year. Treat yourself to a free cup.” Pandemic precautions made that simple pleasure go bye-bye. I’m sure many of you share my pain. Others won’t. Despite coffee’s long history and the omnipresence of Starbucks, there is no monolithic way of viewing the coffee ex...
If I could somehow call my father in the Great Beyond, I’d confess that I’m turning into him. I always felt sorry for Dad because inertia took control, and he continued paying a monthly rental fee on his landline phone for years and years after telephone industry deregulation made it possible for consumers to own their unit outright. Well, yours truly has been paying for both wireless service and a seldom-used landline (from a different provider) for an embarrassingly long time. (In my def...
My family will soon take advantage of our state’s tax-free weekend for clothing and school supplies, but none of our hard-earned money will go for distressed clothing. Coincidentally, none of the money we spend at the food court will purchase pre-chewed burritos. Call us rebels. Silly me, I had assumed that America’s fascination with faded/torn/threadbare clothing would be a passing fad; but it seems to have settled in as the New Abnormal, along with backwards baseball caps, droopy pants and...
Sometimes topics simply demand more research than a deadline allows. I couldn’t do justice to this week’s topic, so I’m kicking the can down the road by dishing out another batch of research-free random thoughts. I’ll confess to being impatient with people who pepper conversations with a slavishly recited “They say.” You know, like “They say that for everybody in the world, there’s a double.” I guess their proclamation means every time you see an obituary, a fertile person somewhere is grip...
“Have you seen everything you want to see?” “Yeah. You?” “Me too. Let’s go back home.” That’s a paraphrased version of my parents’ conversation midway through their honeymoon in 1958. Unimpressed by the hype of an out-of-state adventure, they chose to hightail it back to the real world. (The real worlds of 1958 and 2023 are strikingly different. Today’s “reality” is that your new father-in-law offers to chest-feed any future babies. And pull a bitcoin from their ear.) How many of the people...
“We are the Cubs from Den 3/And no one could be prouder/If you cannot hear our shout/We’ll yell a little LOUDER.” That chant from my Cub Scout pack-meeting days comes to mind as I explore the issue of moderation-challenged speakers, or, as the prestigious American Psychiatric Association clinically labels them, “bozos who wouldn’t know an indoor voice if it bit them on the rear.” Surely you could name some loud talkers. Maybe you ARE a loud talker. When you overhear people whispering...
When I was a young adult living under my parents’ roof, my late father always made sure I had Beanee Weenees, Vienna sausage, potted meat and other such snacks to take to my graveyard-shift factory job. Of course, I appreciated the display of paternal love; but Chris van Tulleken, author of “Ultra-Processed People,” would probably be aghast. Granted, van Tulleken is not alone in sounding alarm bells about today’s ultra-processed foods -- groceries characterized by arm-long lists of additiv...
“Because I could not stop for cataracts, they kindly stopped for me.” Someday I hope to find time to luxuriate in the collected works of poets such as Emily Dickinson – on paper, not as an audiobook -- so my ears perked up when my recent eye exam revealed the early stages of cataracts in both eyes. (There’s a tiny hemorrhage in each of my peepers as well, but cataracts have center stage for this week’s column.) Don’t worry. The optometrist estimated I have five to 10 years until the cataracts w...
Maybe it’s a good thing that my teenage dream of becoming a TV programmer never materialized. Analysts have regarded the over-the-air free TV networks as dinosaurs for years, but now even the cable channels and streaming services are watching over their shoulders for asteroids. Oh, the new Golden Age was nice while it lasted – with companies trumpeting ambitious 5-year plans for special-effects-heavy prestige projects, offering new life to niche programs dumped by the traditional networks and...
It’s difficult to wrap my mind around it, but this will be my 20th Father’s Day as a father. All of those third Sundays in June have blurred together, but I certainly have warm memories of son Gideon’s everyday march toward adulthood. (He marched. I hopped -- because of %$#@ plastic toys on the carpet.) Ah, the embarrassing anecdotes I can someday share with my theoretical grandchildren! Once upon a time, Gideon made a journal entry about a visit to the farmers cooperative where I work. The entr...
I shudder to imagine how Aunt Marie (God rest her soul) would react to today’s explosion of expectations for tipping. Even back in pre-inflationary times, Aunt Marie (who always worked hard for her money) was prone to greet hints for gratuities with a cranky, “I’ll give ‘em a dadgum tip, alright!” (With the understanding that she meant a teeth-jarring tip upside the head.) Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that more and more venues and occupations are pushing for tips and that bare-m...
I still remember one of the houses that my parents ALMOST bought back in 1970. The domicile was memorable because it was right next door to the Hi-Way 50 Drive-in Theater and filled my young mind with impractical daydreams of watching free movies from across the fence. Impractical, because (a) I couldn’t lip-read and (b) my allowance didn’t allow for enough string to run between a speaker and a tin can. Seven years later, my father did take me to the same drive-in to watch “Star Wars.” And in...
Meme: “A cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that is spread via the internet and often altered in a creative or humorous way,” explains dictionary.com. Some people are mere passive consumers of memes. Others eschew newfangled social media altogether. (“If I can’t get my memes through Bazooka Joe comic strips, shortwave radio and smoke signals, I don’t need them! Do you like that contrarian position? Check yes or no on this piece of notebook paper and pass it back…”) M...
Sometimes it’s difficult to approach news items with the proper balance of bemusement, curiosity and wariness. (Sometimes it’s difficult to approach news items at all, when there are shouts of “When are you going to carry out the garbage?” and “That lawn isn’t going to mow itself!” But I digress.) According to a story at thehill.com, After School Satan Clubs have been growing like the Dickens since their establishment at the beginning of 2020. The clubs are associated with the Satanic Temple (“f...
As Mother’s Day approaches, it is appropriate that we discuss the physical characteristics, personality traits, coping mechanisms, etiquette rules, life ambitions, etcetera that we inherited from our mothers. Let’s discuss it in hushed tones, though. We don’t want Uncle Sam salivating over a new type of inheritance tax. (“Who needs Chinese loans? We’ve got dimples, lasagna recipes and heirloom Tupperware! KA-CHING!”) I inherited my soft spot for stray animals from my mother. And when confro...
