MAYBE (MAYBE NOT)

It's summertime...Let's climb into our hammocks and settle down for a good rock-and-read with America's favorite crackerbarrel philosopher (Uh-Oh, 1991, etc.). This time, Fulghum's typically brief, loosely connected essays kick off, after a note on the word ``maybe,'' with a meditation about the ``secret life'' each of us carries in our heads—not a new idea, certainly, but pondered here in the Seattle sage's usual easygoing manner (``I can fully relate to the occasional stories in the tabloids about multiple personalities. This is not news to me''): an intriguing notion to swing back and forth with. Fulghum moves on to family secrets, then to the secret of ironing a shirt, then to nicknames—and all this is getting just a little less charming, maybe (maybe not). The sun beating down on our hammocks is getting a little warmer, too, but we're still rocking back and forth, reading on....about how, as the butt of a practical joke, Fulghum was contacted by the Liberace Fan Club and other unusual organizations; how, each September, his neighborhood is invaded by ``soccer mania''; how he learned that urine is a wonder liquid (``You can tan leather with it...It will clean your hair'')....My, but that sun's hot and the air's lazy and hazy, as we swing back and forth. Can we keep our eyes open for the rest of this book? Maybe (maybe not).