My wife, Sue, and I were great winter puzzle workers. In fact a puzzle was an integral part of our courtship.
Life is kind of like a puzzle – pieces of every shape and color coming together to form a picture that is often stunning and sometimes inspiring. The finished puzzle with one missing piece is somehow not the same.
I have friends of every persuasion – political, from one extreme to the other, every age, color, faith, class, and orientation. While I have certain beliefs that make me comfortable, I would be much poorer for not having known these people with whom I differ.
That's the heart of The Art of Freezing Pickles. Everyone who reads the book will find someone in the book that they would feel inclined to discount in real life, and yet readers love the book because of each and every character.
Freezing Pickles is not a place of sappy, idyllic fools. It’s a place where there are real differences, and yet the people of Freezing Pickles are willing to set aside what they don’t like about a person and instead focus on why they do like that person.
It’s a lesson could be useful in our divided times.
I guess that is something I like about the characters who cross my path in Angel and the Ivory Tower, The Pencil Man, The Art of Freezing Pickles, Satchel at the Second Chance, and Lawrence of Lawrence. We may not always agree, but we travel well and the long nights at the keyboard would be lonesome without them.
Donald Trump and I agree that fast food tastes yummy.