Ezra's Essays

Category: Nostalgia

  • HALL TREES AND SAM HALL

    When I entered the high school in Clayton, Missouri in January of 1936, I was asked a question about my course preparation.  The basic premise was that if you were going on to college, Clayton High School would equip you to handle college work.  If you were not going to college, you were assigned to…

  • BLOWING SMOKE RINGS

    Let me take you back perhaps 25 years when it seemed to me that almost everyone smoked cigarettes.  Cigarettes require fire at their tips.  The fire may be provided by a cigarette lighter, or by a kitchen match, and it can also be provided by matches contained in a small packet that fits precisely in…

  • AMERICAN MILITARY MUSIC

    In 1970, a book written by Robert Sherrill was published with the title, “Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music.” More than anything else, Robert Sherrill had few things complimentary about justice in the American military system. As a matter of fact, he excoriated what is called the justice system in…

  • MISSING THE BLUES

    It is a biological fact that as men age, the more girlfriends they acquire.  Last week, I had a long conversation with just such a girlfriend where the attraction between the two of us goes back for more than 30 years. If you read Ezra’s Essays closely, you will find that the girlfriend was a…

  • STOCKINGS AND GARTERS

    I do not know much about the subject of stockings and garters.  There are those who would say my ignorance on this vital subject is appalling.  On the other hand, I would say to my detractors, of whom there are many, that the absence of expertise is no reason not to write an essay on…

  • WHO PUT THE SUGAR INTO THE CORNBREAD?

    Lillie Carr was my mother, who observed the rules of rural speech and of rural cooking.  She was a good woman who has now been deceased for 50 years.  She was always one of my defenders, and while I was in the Army she kept a blue star in the window of her living room. …

  • ETERNAL LIFE

    The title of this essay might lead some people to assume that in my later years I have succumbed to the teachings and the blathering of Christian preachers.  That clearly is not the case.  It is my intention in this instance to review what might take place if a few or many of us were…

  • A LITTLE THISA AND A LITTLE THATA

    Those of you with prodigious memories may recall that in 2009 there were three essays appearing in this space.  All of them had to do with Ben Bernie, the orchestra leader of the 1930s, 1940s and ‘50s.  When Ben Bernie led his orchestra through a medley of songs, he would often introduce it as “a…

  • MOLASSES MOBILITY

    Upon reflection, it may be that this essay should be properly entitled “Molasses Immobility.”  But we will get to that question a bit later. It may well be that readers of Ezra’s Essays are unfamiliar with the term molasses.  I always try to be helpful in these circumstances and here is what a reference source…

  • POLK SALAD (SALET)

    This essay has to do with a vegetable or a weed that appears in the springtime and is uncultivated.  It grows along hedge rows and along the highways and when it reaches maturity, it is quite poisonous. Also this essay is an exercise in nostalgia.  It has to do with my mother, who departed this…