July 4, 2026
I just got back from a toasty walk to our local farmer’s market to purchase a locally grown tomato for my regular summer meal of a tomato sandwich along with a big piece of sweet watermelon. Our little town was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful this morning, and after I returned and cooled off under the ceiling fan, I pulled up the text of the Declaration of Independence on my iPad and read all of it out loud, something I’m not sure I’ve ever done. I highly recommend it…words seem to fall a little differently when read aloud.
As I continue to scratch away at a multi-media storytelling project about my musical journey, I began to review some old journals this week to hunt for stories that might make the cut. So far, it’s been a mostly wonderful trip down memory lane…such as this entry from 42 years ago:
July 4, 1984…”We had only a three hour layover in Los Angels, and a two hour layover in Honolulu. Then a long flight down across the Pacific. We were to change planes in Auckland, but the fog was so thick we got to fly on into Christchurch.”
Christchurch, New Zealand, where I would spend six weeks as a background singer on a television show called, That’s Country! Before cell phones, personal computers, e-mail, streaming…I was halfway around the world on this date 42 years ago, but that’s a story for down the road.
I’m happy to report that the Big Front Porch website is in the process of being ‘refreshed,’ and as mentioned in a previous email blog, I’m going to be moving over to this page on Substack for blog posts. I plan to migrate my MailChimp list over to Substack, so please, do me a favor…if you’d rather not follow along, feel free to unsubscribe to the MailChimp list…hopefully, you’ll stay on board and bring a few friends with you for the occasional, non-regularly scheduled posts:)
Don’t forget to ‘be sweet!’ Enjoy this picture from That’s Country! back in 1984…TW
