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    Went over to my folk’s house one spring day. Took a walk and saw people out working in their yards, folks I hadn’t seen for years. I saw Mr. Amos Welty down on the corner, raking up the winter deadfall from his yard. Getting the place ready for six months of flowers, starting with the crocuses and ending with the mums. His crocuses were up. I stopped to look at them. He came over to talk, which made me nervous, since we had parted enemies twenty years before.

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    Mr. Welty had been a sour man, a mean man, truth be told. Once, he even threw a shovel at me for walking on his grass. I upped the ante the next day by nailing him with a water balloon. He was pulling weeds, stood to stretch, and I caught him amidships — POW!

    He called the town police officer, Charlie Morelock, who put out an all-points bulletin on me. Officer Morelock found me in my front yard. He stopped his cruiser, climbed out, and walked toward me with his hand on his gun. He drew near, reached out, laid his heavy hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, “Good shot.” He didn’t like Mr. Welty either.

    So I hadn’t talked with Mr. Welty since that time, but it was on my mind when he walked toward me that early spring day. He extended his hand and we shook, which disarmed me. Then we talked about crocuses and other harbingers of spring.

He had changed.

    Twenty years ago, he was corroded with anger; now he was gentleness personified. He had changed. Amos Welty had metamorphosed. I talked with my dad about it. He said Mr. Welty has been nice ever since his mother died. She was all he had, then she died and he was alone. It occurred to him that instead of throwing shovels at children, he should invite them to his porch for bubble gum and cookies. Now his yard has bare spots where grass once grew, but it seems a far lovelier place.

    Read a book that said one’s personality and character are pretty well formed by the age of five. By then folks can tell whether someone will be sipping Ripple in an alleyway or inventing a cure for cancer. At least that’s what the author of this book said — get it right in five years or start saving for bail money.

    I pitched the book. First, because I didn’t need the pressure. I have two children and a spastic colon, so I already don’t sleep nights. But I also pitched it because I know too many Mr. Welty’s — folks who changed horses midway across life’s stream. Got tired of the nag of hate they were riding and traded up to charity and grace.

    The prophet Isaiah talks about God making streams in the desert. Talks about how God puts things where they’ve never been before, like love where hate once reigned. Streams in the desert, Isaiah calls it.

    I’m here to tell you that these streams are real, for early one spring, when the crocuses bloomed... I waded into one.

From the book Front Porch Tales, by Philip Gulley. © 1997 by Multnomah Pub., used by permission.