FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Open letter to Connor-Man – sixteen years ago

Welcome to the “front porch.” What you are about to read is one of the first pieces we wrote after we became “Popman,” although we weren’t Popman until a year or so later.

OUT TO PASTOR: What’s Pete got to do with anything?

If there’s anybody that can be conned, it’s Yours Truly. It’s not so much that I’m stupid; I’m just naïve. I believe when somebody says something, they mean exactly what they say. So, if you can’t swindle me, you might as well hang it up and get a real job.

OUT TO PASTOR: If it was up to me

Fifty years ago, I was a teenager. Boy, do I miss those Days of Yore. It's not that I would like to relive them, but I was a much different person back then. As a teenager, I knew everything, and all you had to do was ask me. Even if you didn’t ask me, I still would tell you what was on my mind.

FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Men can come off as awfully “cheap” on Valentine’s Day

Welcome to the “front porch.” After almost a quarter of a century of sending words to the newspaper, the following Valentines' piece is one I’ll never forget.

FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: And this is... the... rest of the story

Welcome to the “front porch.” Have you ever wondered what the famed Georgian native son Lewis Grizzard would have to say about the state of the union today, or what kind of assessment one of the country’s greatest voices, Paul Harvey would offer?

OUT TO PASTOR: A divided house makes a happy home

Never has our world been more divided than today. Politics, religion, sports and on and on I could go. For the most part, so many people think being divided is a negative thing. And for many people it is.

FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: A flame still burns on Washington Hill

Welcome to the “front porch.” I love looking back into the archives and seeing life as it was back when. The column you are about to read comes from 2003 but was revisited a decade later, as you’ll see.

OUT TO PASTOR: Oh, the daze of my life

When I was young, my mother was quite a fan of a soap opera called “The Days of Our Lives.” I remember the title but I never would watch something like that. However, my mother enjoyed it and so what’s there to complain about.

FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Mem’ries of a song leader, a folded paper, and a friend

Welcome to the “front porch.” Every time I come to the modest church building in Lexington, Oklahoma, I find a newspaper from the Purcell Register in my pew. That newspaper has miraculously appeared every week for quite a few years. The paper’s appearance actually isn’t miraculous.

OUT TO PASTOR: Coffee without coffee... just ain’t coffee

I must soberly confess that I have throughout my life given in to habits and rituals. I don’t like saying that, but it is the truth. At this point, I don’t know the difference between a habit and a ritual.