Back Porch Wisdom

This second collection of essays springs from the back porch, where the best stories are told over a bowl of homemade ice cream. Back porch wisdom is less Solomon-like in profundity and more like a non-Pulitzer Prize winning author would speak to his neighbors who have joined for a late-night jaw session leaning deeply into straining rocking chairs. These stories are unpretentious, opinionated, nostalgic, and simple. Each one starts with a real-life premise and ends with a universal truth. Diving into the second plate of brownies we consider life lessons we learn from homing pigeons, a day in the cornfields, and surprise visits. As the sun creeps behind the horizon we'll run into a host of characters, the sympathetic pickpocket, Bob the Bureaucrat, and the gentle birdmen of Quasimodo's workshop. We will find children singing like chickens and would-be heroes in the humble settings of Sid's Barber Shop and a neighborhood game of Kick the Can.If you start to nod off, we'll consider a few weightier matters like school authoritarianism and family emergencies, about raising boys and the beating death of a young sumo apprentice. We will skewer vegetarianism, feminism, and antidisestablishmentarianism - okay, maybe not the last one, but it had a nice ring to it. We will remember how to play, how to have a water fight and how to win a battle against a five-hundred-pound vending machine. Start reading one essay and you may be stuck for a while. So get comfy.