Written by Michael Claxton Have I told you that I come from a theatrical family? My uncle was an actor in school, and as an adult, he revived the abandoned…
Written by Michael Claxton When I moved to Searcy in 2003 to teach English, I knew only a handful of people. Naturally, I made the rounds of churches in town,…
Written by Michael Claxton One night during the 1940s, Walt Disney heard his daughters laughing over a book. Shortly afterward, he noticed his wife chuckling about it, too. When he…
Written by Michael Claxton I spent the summer watching Disney movies, slowly making my way through all the studio’s animated feature films produced during Walt Disney’s lifetime. Yeah, I know.…
Written by Michael Claxton Everybody knows about the stock market crash of 1929. Lots of people still remember the gas shortages of the 1970s. Some are still recovering from the…
Written by Michael Claxton The hero is out riding his bike. Suddenly, he smells smoke. Oh, no! The pet store is on fire! Flames leap out the front door as…
Written by Michael Claxton I’m sorry to start the semester off with bad news, but Princess Toadstool has left the building. I’m not talking about the Mario franchise character, who,…
Written by Michael Claxton In 2016, I went to see “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which is set in a time slightly before the original 1977 classic. The plot…
Written by Michael Claxton Alexander Pope famously said, “Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor the last to lay the old aside.” I confess I’m often…
Written by Michael Claxton This will be hard. Last time I wrote a piece with no “a’s.” This week, I do not plan to use long words. Just short words.…
It’s been quite some time since I tried this. In 2012, I got up the nerve to write one of my “Bison” columns without using one specific letter from the…
Some years ago, when I was new in town, I had a project to do at home. But it wasn’t a one-person job. So I ordered pizza, invited some friends…
Did you know the chapel stage was once almost on fire? A half-century ago, before the Benson Auditorium was built, chapel was in the Anthony and Wright Administration Building auditorium.…
Many great stories from Harding’s past have been told during chapel. Bible building namesake Jim Bill McInteer once shared how as a freshman in the 1940s he ran afoul of…
By Michael Claxton Since I did not attend a Christian college, chapel was new to me when I came to Harding in 2003. I remember being deeply moved by the…
Written by Michael Claxton Something wasn’t right. I tossed and fidgeted, trying to get comfortable, but it felt like I was lying on a pencil. I was just about to…
Written by Michael Claxton I knew the day would come. I had long been coasting on borrowed time. The paint was peeling on the hood. The automatic locks hadn’t worked…
Written by Michael Claxton I got my ticket as soon as they went on sale. Like every Harding musical I’ve seen, I’m sure Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” will be delightful.…
Written by Michael Claxton In a classic episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Marie has had enough of her lazy, boorish husband. When he loudly demands a pot-roast sandwich, she says…
Written by Michael Claxton For the past 15 years, I have had two standing appointments on Thursdays. One is at Mi Pueblito for lunch, and the other — at least…
Written by Michael Claxton Way back in the spring of 2004, I had only been at Harding nine months. One morning I was glancing at the chapel schedule before heading…
Written by Michael Claxton The primary care doctor my mother saw for 40 years in Georgia retired in the spring. He was such a caring physician that mother asked him…
Written by Michael Claxton Surely the greatest joy of teaching is the chance to work with — and learn from — young people. To see them in the prime of…
I read 41 books last year during the pandemic. Granted, everything else was closed, but still. I’ve been keeping reading lists for the past 15 years, and I was surprised…
Last week, “Just the Clax” received a dare. We get so little mail these days that we can’t ignore any of it. Previously in this space, we were challenged to…
To me, she was the sage in the back corner. To everyone else, she was the head wizard at one of the more magical places in town. For 40 years,…
This may be my shortest column ever. Why? Because I’m reliving something I’d rather forget. I’ve sometimes heard students reflect on their emotions when they learned during last year’s spring…
I’ve been in and out of doctors’ offices several times over the past month, and the experience reminds me of one of the great fiascos of my childhood. I wish…
One of the cool things about history is that it’s always the 100th anniversary of something. The year 2021 marks a century since Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in…
When I was in elementary school, my class took a field trip to a dairy farm. Mathis Dairy in Atlanta had been in business for over half a century, and…
In the 15 years that I’ve written for “The Bison,” I don’t think I’ve ever told you about Buddy. Most families have that person whom everyone refers to as a…
When I was an undergraduate, I can only remember meeting my college president once. He led the small, private university I attended in Atlanta, and I’m sure he was a…
In case you’re joining us without having read last week’s column, or in case last week’s column has suffered the fate of last week’s emails and is buried under a…
Today’s column takes care of some unfinished pandemic business. Last March, as I drove home to Georgia for Spring Break, I composed part of this article in my head. Since…
I met him on his 86th birthday. Allen Woodall sat behind a desk, surrounded by his rambling antique store. The gray-haired man in a plaid shirt smiled when he learned…
Jimmy Allen was intense in the pulpit. He was an old-school preacher and could paint a terrifying picture of life without God. His children joked that it was not always…
He’s been called the “Billy Graham of the Churches of Christ,” and few evangelists have been as effective in reaching others with the gospel. During his lifetime, Jimmy Allen preached…
If you went to chapel yesterday, you caught the latest installment of Favorite Song Stories. In 2012, Dr. Bruce McLarty had an inspired idea. He reached out to the Harding…
After finishing last week’s column, I realized that I have more to say about cake. Particularly, I want to tell you about the first time I baked one. When I…
Over the Christmas break, I read a story that stopped me cold. I have long heard about survivalists — people who hoard food and supplies so they’ll be ready for…
I have a confession. I have spent most of my life trying to be funny. I probably fail more than I succeed, but I am constantly pitching one-liners that I…
I admit it. Once in a while, when no one is looking, I leaf through the archives of “Just the Clax.” After 14 years and over 200 columns, there are…
These days, you know it’s a big news story when Sens. Tom Cotton, R-AR, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY, agree on something. And the news last week was that legislators on…
When the curtains open on the Benson stage this weekend, the Homecoming musical will bring to life the story of Matilda, a precocious child who uses her special powers to…
You may have heard of the poet T. S. Eliot. He was a leader of the High Modernist movement, which means he wrote avant-garde verses understood by maybe 14 people.…
I don’t normally save voicemails, but I kept this one. It was a message from Dr. Ganus. I had spoken in chapel that morning, and though he could not attend,…
I haven’t been able to escape “The Dark Crystal” lately. On Saturday I heard a radio commercial for the new Netflix series based on characters created by head Muppeteer Jim…
Another tall tree has fallen on the Harding campus. Last week we celebrated the life of Dr. Tony Finley, former dean of the College of Education. Now the university family…
I knew a man who was once invited to become the honorary dean of an organization. Since he was in his early 70s, he wanted to know if the job was…
Over the years I’ve picked up a lot of business cards. Many are from antique dealers — since that’s the hobby I was raised on — helping my parents with…
Highway 78 in Birmingham has never been my lucky stretch. Five years ago, I was heading home to Arkansas from Georgia after the holidays. My Toyota Camry — with its…
For the past 91 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been handing out awards for great movies, and I’ve been an avid watcher of the Oscars…
Last Friday, I barely avoided giving $500 to a con artist. My only defense is that I was on medication. Some things happen like clockwork every February. The Arkansas temperature…
I read somewhere that when he was a kid, Jeff Bezos wanted to be an archeologist. A young Jennifer Lawrence planned to pursue medicine. George Clooney dreamed of playing baseball…
Last week I read a story in the newspaper about Bertha Vickers, a hunter from Morgantown, Mississippi, who was having a lousy season. She hadn’t gotten a single deer in…
I don’t know how you feel about re-gifting, but I’ve dipped into the “Just the Clax” archives and recycled a column from November 2011. The article is only seven years…
When my sister-in-law was in college in 1982, she worked at a grocery store. That was the year Coca-Cola introduced the talking vending machine. Customers put in their quarters, stood…
When my nephew was five, we asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said, “a vacuum salesman.” It was hard to know how much to…
Because my parents bought and sold antiques as a hobby, I’m a big fan of the History Channel series “Pawn Stars.” Our family was nothing like the endlessly bickering Harrisons…
I did a double take in Barnes & Noble last Saturday. I was walking past the coffee shop, through the action figures, around the vinyl records, up the aisle of…
Years after he became famous as “The Godfather,” Marlon Brando made a movie spoofing his legendary role. In “The Freshman” (1990), Brando played a mobster who ran an exotic restaurant…
One day last week when I was wearing one of my favorite ties, I received quite a shock. It’s a tie that pictures my cartoon hero Bullwinkle J. Moose holding…
One of my great adventures as a 10-year-old was at the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was the last of a grand tradition of international expos dating back well…
The English Department has a roundtable discussion most Fridays, where faculty and students bring lunch and chat. Last week we talked about walking. We had a guest from the Kinesiology…
I recently overheard a group of students talking about OPIs. In case you aren’t taking a foreign language class, the acronym stands for oral proficiency interviews. The students all felt they…
During spring break a few weeks ago, I spent a few days as an assistant landlord. My mother owns some rental properties in Georgia, and I just happened to be…
I once congratulated Dr. Jack Ryan on a fantastic Sing-A-Rama. It was a rookie mistake. I was a first-year faculty member — unfamiliar with all things Searcy — and my sister…
In case you don’t remember the Brooke Shields cameo in “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” let me set the scene. Kermit is working at a diner while he’s trying to break into…
One image from the second grade lingers in my memory. It was the day our principal ate lunch with us in the cafeteria. On the surface, Mr. Weil was hardly…
One of my favorite stories from the vaudeville era involves the magician Frank Van Hoven. There’s no reason anyone would know his name today, but a century ago he was…
In high school, I took a class called “Experiences in Writing,” where the teacher had us try our hands at various types of poetry. That’s when I wrote my very…
I’m sorry to say, it didn’t work out. It all started last December, when I took my Intel laptop in for repairs. Things weren’t working right: web pages weren’t loading,…
Scott Rogers of Edmond, Oklahoma made the national news last month when something odd happened in his own house. His 6-month-old baby’s pacifiers kept disappearing. Now that is hardly news…
It’s a wonder I wasn’t heckled more in elementary school over this, but one of my prized possessions back then was a Pigs in Space lunchbox. Every day as I…
I once got a letter from Fred Flintstone. It must have been about 1980, after I had long been a loyal consumer of Fruity Pebbles cereal, which the commercials assured me…
I read in last Sunday’s paper that former President Barack Obama has been called for jury duty in his home town of Chicago. Imagine that. Twelve men and women in the…
It’s well known that the eccentric playwright Oscar Wilde had a pet lobster. While he was a student at Oxford in the 1870s, the Irishman used to tie a string…
I had a conversation recently with a woman in her mid-20s who was excited about the idea of self-driving cars. She couldn’t wait to get one, dreaming of the day…
If you visit my neighborhood just about any time of day, there’s a good chance you’ll see them. Walking up one side of the street, and then down the other,…
I think it was my second year of writing for The Bison. Back then I shared space on the opinions page with several others, including a student columnist who was just…
You may not know this, but over the last few decades I have made over three dozen acceptance speeches at the Oscars. Each has gone something like this: The Best…
One of the running jokes on the classic TV show “Seinfeld” involves Jerry’s infamously short-lived romances. Girlfriends seldom last for more than one episode, and quite a few actresses got…
This past summer I spent three months in Georgia after my mother had knee-replacement surgery. She traded a 1934 model knee for a 2017 high-flex titanium implant. I tried to…
I used to do this gag in my British Lit course. The class always met MWF at 2 P.M., and several times per semester, the English Department has its Senior…
After I washed my hands of the all-dirt diet, someone else suggested I consider the Whole 30 program. It seems that diets are a lot like ants. If you squash…
A little over a century ago, President Woodrow Wilson attended the Barnum & Bailey Circus in Washington, D.C. With the election of 1916 just six months away, most Americans assumed…
One day when I was home from college, I ran an errand for my father. I think he needed something from the hardware store and had given me his American…
A friend of mine once said, “If you want the attic cleaned out, don’t send someone who can read.” I learned the truth of this maxim during Christmas break, when…
My English 211 students have spent the last two weeks reading a book called “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age.” The author is Sherry Turkle, a…
Arthur Lloyd was 80 years before his time. The fact that no one’s ever heard of Arthur Lloyd is a real shame, but that’s why you come to me for…
So there I was, sitting at my terminal at the Atlanta airport, minding my own business. At that particular moment, the business I was minding was twofold: I was waiting…
I need to confess something, and please try not to be shocked. Yes, I am the mild-mannered English teacher who never goes anywhere without a sport coat and a blue…
Iwonder how many of you listen to a syndicated radio program called “Intelligence for Your Life.” Heaven knows we all could use some. Host John Tesh and his staff comb…
It may come as no surprise to you that I measure many of the moments in my life based on whether a joke I told did or did not bomb.…
It’s been a while since we’ve had “Uncle Michael’s Storytime” in these pages. So grab a cup of hot cocoa and some warm socks and gather around in a semicircle.…
What is the worth of a man? Is he the sum total of his resume? Is he appraised by his income and portfolio? Is he valued by his character and…
Last year I got a letter from my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rose. She had seen an article about me in our local newspaper in Conyers, Georgia, which had brought…
It’s been exactly 950 years since the Battle of Hastings, when the Duke of Normandy defeated the Anglo Saxon King near the English coast. It would have been cold comfort…
We’ve heard a lot during this bizarre election season about disavowals. As both parties disavow unwanted endorsements, sketchy people who crash their campaign rallies and comments made during the heat…
Every summer I escape the blistering heat of Arkansas to spend a couple of months in the blistering heat of Georgia. This year my trip was bookended by visits to…