The Paw Paw Letters, scenes of life values and process, combines humor, unimaginable real events, intrigue, plus surprise to visualize real folk just doing life in the 1940s and 1950s. The narrated epistles include parents venturing to discipline each other’s children without fear of reprisal, volunteers aiding each other in times of pain and tragedy, and innovative ways to make do with what you have and make it through, all essential efforts for daily life and today worthy of practice if known.

& n b s p ; & nbsp;          The series of 35 messages, written to grandson Aaron, offer to him and other readers a link to a season quite different even to imagination in today’s culture. More so, each value lesson of character woven into the epistles sounds an alert to American families vulnerable to the energies of greed, apathy, self purpose, and loss of integrity.

Personal values nurture character, or character determines personal values? Oh well, as in the adage of the chicken or the egg, the debate may never end. My prevailing concern rests more in the development of values in children struggling in the 21^st century to gain integrity while bombarded by a secular environment. Christian parenting today goes up against the power of time-absence from kids due to parents’ job demands, divorce, the lure of pleasure, and tragically, neglect. Intentional value teaching, especially by example, suffers due to fatigue and even more the absence of prevalent solid, non-negotiable values abiding in the character of many parents.

My previous paragraph may appear harsh. No indictment is meant. This is my story of my value system, still in development, which began during childhood and adolescence in a good place with wise folks during hard times. The times I speak of encompassed an era, not bad—just hard. The span of years moved along from economic interruption to a season mixed with determination, toleration, and sometimes despair to a point of embracing the growing theme, “Mr. Roosevelt’s going to save us all.” The community challenged description and defied definition. In essence, to the less than 1,000 residents, the culture offered few open gates into a nearly closed society. Attention to needs, reliance on neighbors, adjusted living almost on a daily basis, and hope that hard times would end seemed, as I remember, to displace gossip, nosiness, and even church fusses. Today, the remains of most of my hometown heroes rest in the local cemetery across from the schoolhouse. Often at night, their faces race through my mind, a race I interrupt to reminisce old moments and thank God for hugging people, connecting people, teaching folks, witnessing folks, affirming folks, and…just good folks.

Today, little if any impact of the 1930’s Great Depression influences American culture. I am a debtor to that era and believe intensely the time, place, and folk all interwoven can assist God’s people in introducing and nurturing Christian values to our children. There was something special about the time that is good for today.

I hold a more precious reason—my grandson, Aaron, may have only one shot at exposure to value development as influenced by the Great Depression era. I am, I have, I carry a haunting passion to pass on to him valuable lessons from an age long ago that by the grace of God nurtured my life development. And so, I have written “The Paw Paw Letters, Life Lessons for Aaron from a Good Place with Wise Folks during Hard Times.”

I write, with a prayer, to draw pictures in his mind of valued days of my life with the hope to bless his years.

James Porch, husband, father, grandfather (Paw Paw), celebrates more than a half century in Christian ministry through local churches and denominational leadership. His exposure to the ever expanding parental struggle to initiate and maintain character values for children nurtures his passion for writing the Paw Paw Letters. Dr. Porch shies away from his educational credentials, awards, and recognitions by focusing daily life energy simply being a disciplined student responding to life passions of family ministry and human wholeness in the Christian faith. He and Kelly, his wife, enjoy the gift of regular periods of extended time with their grandson, Aaron. Their home, Rehoboth, named for the Porch family homeplace, offers Mimi, Paw Paw, and Aaron a setting to encounter just enough 21^st century reality while enjoying the blessings of accompanying rural life surrounded by reminders of a worthy lifestyle of years past.