Front Porch Tales: Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love

Front Porch Tales: Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love

Wisdom and Humor from the Front Porch Master storyteller Philip Gulley shares tender and hilarious real-life moments that capture the important truths of everyday life. When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch. Wisdom and Humor from the Front Porch Master storyteller Philip Gulley shares tender and hilarious real-life moments that capture the important truths of everyday life. When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch. Philip Gulley is a Quaker minister, writer, husband, and father. He is the bestselling author of Front Porch Tales , the acclaimed Harmony series, and is coauthor of If Grace Is True and If God Is Love . Gulley lives with his wife and two sons in Indiana, and is a frequent speaker at churches, colleges, and retreat centers across the country. Front Porch Tales Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love By Philip Gulley HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2007 Philip Gulley All right reserved. ISBN: 9780061252303 Growing Roots Had an old neighbor when I was growing up named Doctor Gibbs. He didn't look like any doctor I'd ever known. Every time I saw him, he was wearing denim overalls and a straw hat, the front brim of which was green sunglass plastic. He smiled a lot, a smile that matched his hat-old and crinkly and wellworn. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted. When Doctor Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life-goal was to make it a forest. The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandry. He came from the "No pain, no gain" school of horticulture. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them, and that if you water them, each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out the weenie trees early on ... Continues... Excerpted from Front Porch Tales by Philip Gulley Copyright © 2007 by Philip Gulley. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.