Small Matters: A Year in Writing

An excerpt from the short story The Lemon FestivalThe whole trip turns out to be fun, though, a flashback to Leave it to Beaver land. Whether history happened like a 50s sitcom hardly matters as I stand listening to the country twang of a good band-the beer garden to my left and a two-story giant Icee booth to my right. The Lemon Festival is, in fact, well-organized. Families with strollers are everywhere. Couples have come after church: women in their floral dresses, men in their dark polyester slacks and dress shoes. The couples browse the booths and sip lemonade. Mothers in sun visors and matching flip-flops lather their children in sun screen. The children scream and pull away. A brigade of young men in construction yellow t-shirts, Volunteer Ministers their t-shirts say, work the crowd with religious brochures.In Small Matters, columnist Joe Woodward delivers a one-year slice of life in the Los Angeles suburbs with this appealing collection of stories about everyday people who struggle, weep, triumph, and make a difference.