When I was growing up, I remember thinking I didn’t like black and white movies. I realize now that it’s mostly because black and white movies weren’t often targeted to kids. If a movie was done in black and white, it was usually a serious, grown-up movie. I mean, there’s nothing that would have made […]

Lots of musicians have recorded the song, “Route 66,” but before Depeche Mode did it, it was just a US highway to me. After all, we have Interstates now, so there’s an easier route to get from here to California. The Grapes of Wrath made the road more personal, even though I have yet to […]

So I was watching Kung Fu Panda the other night, and I noticed that the ancient turtle master Oogway wore his shell as if it were a cloak, a man-made armor, connected with braided rope instead of flesh. The next day, I visited my sister and met her pet turtle Mack, whom she had saved from a treacherous […]

My dad worked for the Boy Scouts of America when his kids were young. He hooked up with them in New Orleans and was immediately transferred to a little town in northeastern Louisiana called Bogalusa. We were there four years before they decided to transfer him to Texas. My brother had been in Cub Scouts […]