porch people

Says Flagstaff-based poeta, Logan Phillips in a recent email: "The foto turned out pretty well, it works best just to remind me of that beautiful morning, rather than capturing anything especially special... but that's what all good fotos do, I think. I like that porch of yours."

That's Logan, me, and Claudia Acosta decorating the top steps...

Yep, that paint-peeled old wooden porch of mine has been a veritable throne to many of my compadres and comadres passing through town on some tour, research investigation, convention or other. When Jason and Shani lived in the hood as neighbors, they would often porch-sit with me over a coupla brews and rolled Buglers. If I wasn't home, they'd even show up, cuz they didn't have a porch of their own and just liked sitting on mine. That's how welcoming this Fairmount Ave. porch has been over the ages.

Vicki Monks sent me this foto, taken back in January, when she and poet-visual artist-film actor Richard Ray Whitman spent a weekend in FW to check out Avedon's "In the American West" photo exhibit and some of the other local museums.

Vicki, an award-winning journalist who focuses much of her attention on environmental issues, might be visiting my porch again this week, as she is making plans to attend the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Fort Worth which runs from June 15th-18th.

You can check out some of Vicki's journalism online, via this portal or download the audio for "Carbon Black" an NPR report that earned her an SEJ (Society of Environmental Journalists) 1st place award in 2005.

And, if you're ever in the hood and have only the goodest intentions, stop by. My porch is your porch.