Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—The difficult part is pulling up the warm season vegetable plants while they still seem to be productive. It gets much easier after that. Putting new cool season vegetables back into the garden is much more gratifying. Vegetable gardening never stops here. One season starts before the previous season ends. If cool season vegetable plants get a late...

UNITED STATES—A lot of the drug store operation and staff was inherited from Mr. Meyer when Johnson Drug changed hands, in 1962. That inheritance included Alberta Johnson. Yes, she was related to Johnson, the Johnson whose surname the store bore. Alberta was his widow. He must have died early, leaving her with a daughter to raise. So even though she had a house on Cutter Drive and drove a T-bird, here...

UNITED STATES—The calender says that it is now autumn. The weather does not necessarily agree. Some of the trees are dropping their leaves. However, the leaves are not falling because the weather is getting significantly cooler. The leaves got cooked during that weird heat wave a few weeks ago. If the weather can be this confusing here in our...

UNITED STATES—There was always a second banana at the drug store—the relief pharmacist. Johnson Drug wasn’t a one man show. The first relief pharmacist was Chet Turney, a thin wise man, who always carried a thousand dollars in his wallet and was a ham radio operator. He exposed all of us to the word, “Andale” (Hurry up in Spanish). Then...

UNITED STATES—Things might have gone better for Cinderella if she had taken a Buick to the ball instead of that detrimentally punctual pumpkin coach. It was on such a tight schedule! It might have seemed like a good idea on the way too the ball. It certainly was a unique ride. The problem was that it made no accommodation...

UNITED STATES—Dad couldn’t cut the mustard in pre-med. The chemistry was too much for him, so he settled for pharmacy, and perhaps in his mind being a druggist was second best, both materially and socially, to being a doctor. He wasn’t in the same league as the doctors (they had houses on Brewington), but the pharmacy suited his Virgo...

UNITED STATES—Philodendrons, dracaenas, ferns, palms or any sort of tropical foliage inside our homes only create an illusion of closeness to nature. Naturally, these plants live in very different climates, mostly thousands of miles away. Not only do they have no business in our homes; they have no business on the North American Continent. Some can live in the...

UNITED STATES—For quite some time I have been thinking about going vegan. On occasion, I have actually done it, where I would completely give up red meat, pork and seafood. Yes, I know what you all are thinking, but what about chicken. Yes, I do indulge in chicken a bit simply because I need to have protein in my...

UNITED STATES—The advent of the chain store, Long’s, just a block from his Main and East Lake corner, caused my dad a great deal of worry. His confrere, Harry Johnson at Steinhauser & Eaton got a chuckle out of his anxiety, mimicking my dad: “The sky is falling, Long’s is coming.” It was this big, uncontrollable, nameless, faceless thing coming...

UNITED STATES—If the rumor mill is to be believed, the US gang of automakers known as “The Big Three” may soon be known as “The Last Two.” This potential inevitability (oxymoron intended) all hinges on whether or not speculation regarding the possible sale of America’s iconic Jeep brand to a Chinese company called Great Wall is to be believed....