It was a dark and stormy night... Well, it was raining -- I don't know if I would say storming... But I've always wanted to use that corny line to start a story. Anyways, I was sitting on the front porch smoking and I was really enjoying listening to the sounds of the traffic and the rain around me. It reminded me of the ocean, the combination of the two. Just down below me were the headlights of the car, dancing in the raindrops. (For Scott et al -- and just in the distance, I could hear pollen fires crackling.) I suddenly had a longing for the home of my youth, the quiet ease of surbubia.

The homes in the circle, calling out their stories softly to one another. Almost like the hum of electricity. Then it hit me. That sound, that softness was all happening in the front of the houses... While we spent our nights behind the houses in the decks and rolling backyards. Which was tender and beautiful, but sheltered from the true heartbeat of the street... Where the real beauty lay.

I realize that I want to be in the front porch of that world. In an old time age, without the loss of innocence. But with a screened in porch -- just so I still have some shelter from all that beauty.

And from the skeeters! ;-)

The thing is... I have the picture a lot. Sitting on the screened front porch in the rosy twilight absorbing all the life in the world and feeling comfortably twingly... And Scott's always in it. And that's what it's really all about...

hp