(Book 2!) I’m not sure exactly how much extra power I coaxed from my Deluxe Renegade bicycle when I put a playing card in the spokes, but I’d guess at least 900 horsepower. You had to bend the card just so, reach inside the chain and attach it to the frame with a strong clothes […]

(Book 2!) I’m pretty sure that banjo-playing hillbilly kids from Arkansas smoked a LOT of grapevines in the Sixties. Steve and I were keen to try them when we were 10 or 11 after he smuggled some back from a family vacation.  Strangely, our parents didn’t seem worried about it. In fact, I think I […]

(Book 2!) Of all the really great songs from the Sixties, without a doubt, the one we sang loudest and with the most gusto, was 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall  on the church youth group’s epic trip to Six Flags Over Texas. I bet we sang it eleventy hundred thousand times, give or […]

(Book 2!) The simplest grub was the best grub for young cowboys on Nebraska Street, so every saddle bag had to be filled with Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches. Grape jelly was best, but strawberry would do. Anybody who tried to use marmalade, whatever the heck that is, was cruisin’ for a bruisin’. If Steve […]

(Book 2!) One minute, I was running around Safeway’s aisles, catching the winning touchdown pass, launching my patented half-court hook shot, and sliding into second for a double. Then, somehow, I was hurled into the very tall L’eggs display at the end of the aisle. What happened next was sort of surreal, in slow motion […]

(Book 2!) Mom was 18, and Dad was just 17. It’s said that he lied about his age to get married and to join the Navy before War II was over. Dad’s proposal was less than romantic: “If we’re married, and I get killed in the War, you’ll get my Navy pension.” So they quietly […]

(Book 2!) The All-Star pitcher stares at home plate. His long-time nemesis stares back, crowding the plate with his size. The pitcher winds up and puts everything he has into a pitch aimed directly at the batter’s left ear hole. But, sadly, my pitch lands about five feet in front of Steve. My 10-year-old arm […]

(Book 2!) Keep movin', movin', movin' Though they're disapprovin' Keep them dogies movin', Rawhide That was the greatest Cowboyin’ song in the history of the Wild West. And the best thing about the song was the bullwhip at the end.   Some tough hombre cracked his whip a whole bunch of times to let the dogies […]

(Book 2!) In the Seventies, Dad’s cousin Sonny heard there was BIG money to be made in worms. A Co-op had been formed in Oklahoma City, and there were plans to have dozens if not hundreds of commercial worm growers. The ones who got in first would make the big money when the Co-op started […]

(First "Memories" Book) I’d been overseas a long spell, working in journalism and public relations, when the Y2K computer bug threatened to collapse the world’s economy.   It made me think about my heritage of blacksmiths and firemen, of cowboys and Indians ─ people who worked with their bare hands. In the photo, that’s my strapping great-grandfather, Charles L. Moore, and his son, my grandpa, George […]