Front Porch Expressions

“A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho…. The craft pranced and reared and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. … Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she would slide and [...]

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My wife says I screamed that Tuesday afternoon in March. Maybe so, I hate rodents. Especially the ones that move quickly. But I prefer to think of what I did as bellowing – not screaming. That sounds more manly. It all started with a call to my cell phone. I was in Davenport, about 20 [...]

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Long before the December 1975 phone conversation that led to Janet’s biggest adventure — a shot at Big League racing — she had experienced a lifetime of adventures. Janet was born March 7, 1938, in Iowa City, the oldest of Lain and Jean Guthrie’s five children. Her family moved to Miami when she was a [...]

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When the world first heard of Janet Guthrie, she was already an experienced racer with a desperate need to advance. “I was a racer right through to my bone marrow,” says Guthrie, who is being inducted April 27th into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (IMHOF) in Talladega. “I was a racing driver who happened [...]

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Remember the days — long before the interstate highways — of traveling to grandma’s house on two-lane ribbons of asphalt? The route wasn’t very direct, you slowed to a crawl every time you came to a small town or drove through a large city and, when nature called, some of the restrooms you were forced [...]

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Following are details regarding the life of longtime Iowa news broadcaster Grant Price, who died over the weekend. I’ve never lived in the Cedar Rapids-Waterloo area, where Grant did most of his work. But I am well aware of his many accomplishments. I had the honor of first meeting Grant when I joined IBNA some years back and, though we didn’t [...]

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It’s been a couple years now, I guess, since Greg Schnoor did some Olympic-caliber tumbling in my kitchen. But unlike most gymnasts, he didn’t use a balance beam. Greg used a chair at my kitchen table. It was something to behold. Greg was starting a business, and I own a small home-based advertising agency. He [...]

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Note: This story was written in December 2003 and appeared at that time as a column in The North Scott Press, Eldridge, Iowa. This will be a special Christmas for me. It’s the 20th anniversary of the Christmas on which I almost killed myself. But don’t get the wrong idea. Had I succeeded, my death [...]

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If I kept a diary, November would have been recorded in it as a good news-bad news month. The children and grandchildren were all home for Thanksgiving. It was a great time. That was certainly good news. It was the first Thanksgiving without my dad, who died last March. Bad news. I discovered a new [...]

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There is nothing better than a fried bologna sandwich. Well, of course, you know that’s not true. Lots of things — like a good steak or some juicy ribs — are better. But when you’re broke and can’t afford a hamburger, much less a steak or ribs, a fried bologna sandwich (let’s call it FBS [...]

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