Saturday, September 22, 2018

Bud Herron

Bud Herron: Bringing Civil War history to life to benefit HSJ Online

Thirty-five years ago my wife, Ann, stitched together a make-shift version of a Union Army uniform, and I wore it over to North Grove Elementary School in Greenwood to tell Civil War stories to my daughter’s fifth grade class.
Bud Herron: Remembering Chuck Grimes

Chuck Grimes, 71, HSJOnline contributing writer, died May 31 after a short, unexpected battle with pancreatic cancer.
Bud Herron: Living with discounts, not such a bargain
Bud Herron: Zucchini to feed the masses
Bud Herron: Time for a tattoo?
Bud Herron: Truck-driving dreams fade on road trip
Bud Herron: Recognizing a figure in the fog
Bud Herron: Starting life with a minor felony is no crime
Bud Herron: Loss of barber shops hair-raising development
Bud Herron: Girl Scouts planning cookie coup
Bud Herron: The world comes to Hope on a tiny screen
Bud Herron: Scars remained from East Hope childhood

My father quit school two months before he was to graduate.

He had been accused by J. Ray Ross (then the young principal at Hope and later to be in the same position at Columbus High School) of stealing the light switch knobs in the school's study hall.
Bud Herron: Social media fails to fill the loss of porches

If you live in Hope and your house is more than 50 years old, chances are you have a front porch with a sidewalk in front of it. Until the 1950s, that's the way houses were built and the way communities evolved. In warm weather, people sat on those front porches in wooden swings and fan-backed metal chairs, sipping iced tea out of tall, Tupperware tumblers.
Bud Herron: Searching for sins requires creative thinking

Following the narrow path would have been difficult enough if her rules had been precise and unchanging. However, with each new preacher and each new guest evangelist her rules got longer and more diverse. So did the Wednesday night "Prayer Meetings" where altar calls to repentance and salvation sometimes lasted for what seemed like hours.
Bud Herron: Uncovering the secrets of pedicures

One of the few things I have learned about women in my 65 years of studying the subject from various angles is that they keep a lot of secrets from men. Of course, women never admit this. They always claim they have told us everything, that we were just watching the football game on TV and paying no attention.
Bud Herron: Dipping into the American cuisine a greasy experience

I love food -- just about any food. In fact, the weirder the better. Name a country -- Japan, China, Italy, Afghanistan, Tibet, Cuba, France, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Argentina, Whateverland -- and I have probably both eaten and enjoyed their cuisine.
Bud Herron: Pudding shortcuts lead to disappointment

It is hard to figure out exactly when Americans began losing what has been called "the Protestant work ethic" and began sculpting a belief system based on entitlement. In my own life experience, I trace it back to the invention of Jell-o Instant Pudding. That was roughly 1953.
Bud Herron: Glamour fades in blizzard's grip

Nothing drew my attention and my imagination quite as much as the old woman in the sparkling jewelry trying to cross the street. She wore black, rubber boots; a full-length mink coat and a brown headscarf as she moved through the snow like an over-the-hill tightrope walker without a net. The bottom of the coat dragged through the muck as the woman stepped from the snow bank into the street slush. Her hands were tucked inside the coat pockets, and she kept trying to save the coat by lifting up with both arms, but it was of no use.
Bud Herron: New Year calls for purple pants diet

I offer you the first diet that has ever worked for me: the Purple Pants Diet.
Bud Herron: Cat cleaning requires speed, pain endurance

Some people say cats never have to be bathed. They say cats lick themselves clean. They say cats have a special enzyme of some sort in their saliva that works like new, improved Wisk - dislodging the dirt where it hides and whisking it away.
Bud Herron: Meeting over coffee speaks quiet volumes

I noticed the woman and her older companion the minute we walked in. For one thing, the coffee shop was crowded with Indiana University students nursing long-cold, over-priced lattes and cappuccinos as their justification for taking up table space to work on assignments. Other than my wife and me, the woman and her companion were the only misfits in the room.
Bud Herron: Unlocked imagination the key to freedom

I am not sure now how the idea for the trip was born. For a 12-year-old boy, the reason for doing something is not always a part of the process.
Bud Herron: Overcoming the impossible requires perspective

Three-year-old granddaughter Zoë thinks I can do anything.