MY AMAZING LIFE AND OTHER STORIES

We got our first television in the mid 1950’s. The screen couldn’t have been over 15” and it resembled a telescope more than any modern day set. Western movies and television shows were all the rage in that era. My brothers and I spent hours watching cowboy heroes like “Roy Rogers,” “The Rifleman” and “The Lone Ranger”. So, it wasn’t any wonder I wanted to grow up to be like my favorite star “The Lone Ranger”.Of course, millions of other kids around the country had the same fantasy of mounting a horse and galloping off after a villain in pursuit ...

I have published nearly 100 articles in two months. A great accomplishment, yet I haven’t realized any monetary rewards for my efforts. What could the problem be? Many readers have commented they liked my well written material, mostly family humor. There are countless writers who’ve published far less and have established a much larger audience. Therefore, I must be doing something wrong. So, I’ve began looking at other articles being submitted to discover how other authors are succeeding....

print undo remove image My first real fist fight occurred in the 5 th grade and I was ten years old. There had been one or two before in the 1 st grade, but they ended up the same way, so I won’t go there. The odd thing is, I’m a short person, and probably the last one anyone would think of going out of their way to pick a fight. Normally, I never did. They would find me anyway...and if challenged you had to fight because it was the law. It’s right there in the “unofficial” Boy’s Code of...

AT AGE 4 IN WARNER ROBBINS, GA., MY YOUNGER BROTHER MIKE, WAS AN UNRULY LAD TO SAY THE LEAST. ALTHOUGH BORN LEGALLY BLIND MOM COULDN’T KEEP THE LITTLE SCAMP FROM RUNNING OFF AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD. SHE SPENT HALF OF HER TIME TRYING TO FIND HIM. SO, AS A LAST RESORT SHE BOUGHT A CHILD HARNESS WITH A LEASH (POPULAR BACK IN THE MID 50’S). SHE PUT IT ON HIM AND HOOKED THE LEASH TO THE CLOTHES LINE. PROBLEM SOLVED, RIGHT? NOT QUITE! MIKE SOON WEARIED OF RUNNING BACK AND FORTH IN HIS LIMITED DOMAIN AND BEGAN SCHEMING OF A WAY OUT OF THIS FRUSTRATING SITUATION. ...

print undo remove image As we get older, memories of notable accomplishments in our lives have a way of becoming bigger, better or more exciting than they actually were. It’s only human nature. With the passage of time and constant retelling of a story it’s bound to be refined to a point of being unrecognizable as truth if it were told at the time it happened. OK, so maybe we lied a little bit! Grandfathers are masters of this art. At least mine was. I think the secret lies in their keen...

BY JOHN YOUNG Stuff happens. That’s the nice version of a pretty popular phrase. But it really does. Read on and find out a true life story of when it really did hit the fan so to speak. My dad was a career Air Force man and when my two other brothers and myself were quite young he was assigned duty at Tachikawa Air Force Base, Japan. Back then, as well as now, there was always a waiting list for military families to get in to base housing. We were no exception. So we had to secure quarters...

BY JOHN YOUNG I suppose almost everybody has heard the story of the ugly duckling that grew into a beautiful swan. For me, the story holds special significance. My mother told it to me about the time I entered grade school. It holds special significance because I was an “ugly duckling”. When I was two weeks old a friend of my mother’s was visiting. Mom was showing me off when the woman rudely exclaimed, “Well, that has got to be the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen!” Why my mother chose to tell me this I’ll never understand. However, at age six I entered ...

During my lifetime I’ve considered myself fairly competent and intelligent in most matters. There are some areas in which I excel and others…well, to put it bluntly, I suck. Gardening was one of those areas. Of course, growing up in the Ozark Mountains made me an expert in the fine art of cultivating a proper vegetable garden, although I had never even held a hoe. Off and on during the 1950’s, I had lived on my grandparent’s farm, perched atop a mountain in the Ozark foothills and had watched...

print undo remove images LEAVING A LEGACY Researching one’s family tree has become a national pastime in the last few years and has become a lucrative industry. But building a family tree isn’t as easy as all the advertising depicts. To build one correctly takes time and patience…lots of patience. It’s not something you can throw together and forget about. It’s an ongoing work in progress. Unless you’ve traced your family back to the Garden of Eden, there’s always one more person to add...

print undo remove images By John J. Young I was a baby boomer, class of ’52. And like all kids of that era grew up listening to musical giants such as Elvis Presley and other “Rock and Rollers”. But it wasn’t until the early 1960’s the desire to play guitar became an obsession. Maybe it was because my older brother, Tom, had. He was my hero and I wanted to be just like him. In those days, playing a guitar was the fastest way to become “cool”. Tom was already popular and didn’t need any help...

"THE BIGGER THE LIE THE MORE PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE IT" It was my older brother Tom who inspired me to take up physical fitness in my early teens. It was the early 1960’s and both of us had been extremely active adolescents. But Tom, only a year older than me, had become a fanatic by age 14. He was into it all…body building, jogging, calisthenics, sit ups, pull ups, pushups or any other exercises that would transform him into the perfect “hard body”. He was also into martial arts training. Tom...

undo remove image GETTING IT OFF MY CHEST My parents’ raised me in an old fashioned, God fearing home, although I didn’t become a serious Christian until much later in life. They used biblical principles such as “Honesty is the best policy.” and “An honest days’ work for an honest days’ pay.” as guidelines for me to follow. I’ve tried to follow those standards. But in these modern times, it would appear few others do…or is it just my imagination? I think not. Over the last ten years I’ve...

print undo remove images I guess it was about the biggest thing to ever happen in Crawford County, Arkansas. It was around the summer of 1981 and my wife and I were living in the Ozark Mountain foothills as caretakers of my late grandparent’s property. Some "pot" had been discovered growing on the bottom slope of our mountain. It was a typical hot, blistering Arkansas day when the exciting events began to unfold. I was in the middle of mowing the four acres comprising our family farm when I heard a familiar noise. I cut the mower engine and listened ...

print undo remove image I like most dogs, and usually they like me back. But, years ago there was a dog that hated me with a passion… and probably with good reason. He was part Spitz mixed with, I don’t know what. The cur was small, ferocious and loud. Ownership of the mongrel was claimed by my next door neighbors’ kid who imaginatively named him “Spot”. My neighbor, “Red”, was a retired Marine who operated a home-based automobile repair shop down the road a piece from me. We became fast...

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