Welcome to the Porch, it is a “porch  sitting evening” for sure. The heat dome that we’ve all been reading about the past week or so has certainly put its mark on our community here on the plateau. We’ve been mid 90s for at least six days now and when you combine that with good old southern humidity, well that’s a good time to sit on the porch and raise a nice cold glass of iced tea, sweet tea. I remember years ago when I would be visiting with my grandmother during the summer those old hot, lazy summer days never kept us from getting out and going to the playground and ball field. Now a days the kids are in the house in the air conditioning and playing their games. But what I seem to remember is that every day about 1 o’clock, we’d have a terrible terrible thunderstorm and when that rain got done it was just like walking around in a steam tunnel somewhere for a little while, but oh that fresh smell, fresh clean smell of rain. It was really refreshing. I don’t think I’m wrong and I can still remember it. You could smell the rain coming, see it and nowadays with all the weather forecasting equipment that we have everything is a big storm or everything is something we need to worry about. I remember in my younger days, my grandmother would sometimes tell us that thunder was the Angels bowling. I didn’t really know what she was talking about then, but it made me feel a little bit better. 

I really have been looking forward to coming out here on the porch this evening I needed that quiet time or at least the time of fellowship to sit around and ponder over a few things. I haven’t really taken a lot of time to ponder before coming out here this evening and I guess when that’s the case your mind kind of wanders back in time and you like to remember things and as you get older, it’s just the way the day goes for most of us we like to remember how it used to be and we always say those were the good old days. I’ll let you be the judge of that. I guess I was about nine years old and the neighborhood that my grandmother lived in had a playground. Can you imagine that, yeah a playground and all kinds of things, swings monkey bars, slides, they even had a really first class softball field with a backstop and everything. Usually on Wednesdays every week a lady would come and teach Bible. As soon as enough guys showed up, we would start forming teams and begin to play softball usually about 10:30 or 11 o’clock in the morning and we would play up until that “every day 1 o’clock rain” came along. Now let me explain to you about that rain. That rain was one of those old-fashioned southern summer rains. When it was done, it was like walking around in a steam chamber I guess for a little bit, but that fresh smell everything was so clean and it cooled things off, but you know what it never did make that softball field unplayable and I thought that was remarkable. Well, I suppose we didn’t get a whole lot of pondering done this time, but it was nice, the fellowship and the opportunity to share our thoughts away from the constant protest, complaining, and whining, and moaning that our society has become. You know what I may have just stumbled upon a ponder to leave you with. I have never seen so many mad people, unhappy, and unsure of what is yet to come. God is good. Life is good so I’ll leave you with this Ponder for today. From an old magazine and cartoon character you may or may not remember… Ponder This. “What, Me Worry?”

Kurt