Front Porch Rambles

Even as a child, I was averse to sleep.  I was the kid in Boy Scouts who got out of his sleeping bag once I was sure everyone was snoring. The night whispers to me, even more so with a campfire.  The embers stay hot for a very long time, though thy may not appear so.  In the morning, all you'd have to do was stir up the dead gray ashes to find the glittering deep heat beneath.  Toss on some tinder and voila, fire is born again. At 2 in the morning, the flames were merely napping, easily aroused to continue their hypnotizing dance.  How many times did I crawl back into the tent when the stars began to vanish? How many times did I pretend to have woken early? Sometimes I would walk the unknown wilderness while the world slept.  This habit has continued into my adult life.  Whenever I visit a friend in a new city, I inevitably find myself walking alone through the night.  One snowy dawn in Chicago I found myself at the end of the Navy Pier, silent an...

They were just finishing the short demonstration on the faux-bouldered shore of Sea Lion Lake.  The leftover herring splashed in scattered handfuls as the keepers emptied their pails.  Fur glistened over smooth muscle and the animals dove into the water, where they became gliding shadows under the surface. The turquoise water gleamed beside the dark wet cement. So beautiful, the man thought.  Looks like something that belonged to some exotic destination like Hawaii, or the Florida Keys.  He'd never been.   A few last minute questions were called out and answered, but the crowd was dispersing and the man pushed his way through until he was pressed against the rail.  The animals were lazily gliding back and forth across the long pool, pausing to frolic here and there.  He could just see the underwater viewing tunnel at the far end of the clear waters.  Beneath the surface, Millie and Roscoe danced to the delight of children with their faces presse...