{"id":241,"date":"2006-07-22T07:30:53","date_gmt":"2006-07-22T12:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=241"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:39:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:39:29","slug":"a-front-porch-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"A Front Porch View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"469\" height=\"349\" align=\"middle\" title=\"Summer Storms.jpg\" id=\"image240\" alt=\"Summer Storms.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/Summer%20Storms.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been grabbing some much needed and overdue front porch time in my homestate of Virginia this week. The view above is from a couple of nights ago as a late evening thunderstorm rolled into the valley where I grew up. That particular storm blew the roof off the Virginia Transportation Museum in downtown Roanoke. I know that probably didn&#8217;t make the A.P. wire,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.roanoke.com\/news\/roanoke\/wb\/74601\"> but it sure got the attention of folks around here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Besides sitting on the front porch taking in an eyeful of Blue Ridge Mountains, here are a few of my other favorite things to do when I&#8217;m in Virginia:<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eating biscuits slathered with Virginia apple butter for breakfast while my Mom catches me up on who&#8217;s died, divorced and generally done what to whom<\/li>\n<li>Rummaging through the basement, attic and my old room and discovering some long lost treasure<\/li>\n<li>Running the same country roads that I trained on as a teenager and getting chased by the barking, snarling canine progeny of the same dogs that chased me in the late 70s. Talk about adding a little &#8220;gitty-up&#8221; to your step<\/li>\n<li>Lapsing into my native southwest Virginia lilt when I talk with family and old friends, saying things like &#8220;Vah-GIN-ya&#8221; and &#8220;YES-tiddy&#8221; for &#8220;yesterday.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Visiting the Roanoke City Market and having a &#8220;dog with the works&#8221; from the Roanoke Wiener Stand<\/li>\n<li>Placing an American flag on my father&#8217;s grave since I wasn&#8217;t able to be here on Memorial Day<\/li>\n<li>Worshiping at the church where I grew up with the now aged saints who in their 20s, 30s and 40s worked hard to make sure that I grew up knowing my Bible, fearing God and behaving like a decent person. In postmodern, emerging church vernacular, that&#8217;s known as &#8220;spiritual formation.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If I have time after all that, I may even visit my old high school and reminisce a little about the so-called &#8220;Glory Days.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bruce_Springsteen\">The Boss<\/a> would approve.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, I&#8217;m very happy to live in the present and frankly wouldn&#8217;t want to do it all over again. But there&#8217;s something to be said for getting in touch with your roots and drawing a little nourishment from memories of the past.<\/p>\n<p>I may live in the &#8220;big city&#8221; now, but when you get down to it, &#8220;you can take the boy out of the country, but you can&#8217;t take the country out of the boy.&#8221; Especially when he settles down on the front porch on a muggy July evening and watches God ride in on clouds of thunder.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Praise the LORD from the earth,<br \/>\nyou great sea creatures and all ocean depths, <\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em><span id=\"en-NIV-16380\" class=\"sup\"><\/span>lightning and hail, snow and clouds,<br \/>\nstormy winds that do his bidding, <\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em><span id=\"en-NIV-16381\" class=\"sup\"><\/span>you mountains and all hills,<br \/>\nfruit trees and all cedars&#8230;<\/em>\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Psalm 148:7-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been grabbing some much needed and overdue front porch time in my homestate of Virginia this week. The view above is from a couple of nights ago as a late evening thunderstorm rolled into the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,54,34,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-nostalgia","category-scripture","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9959,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/9959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}