"PORCH STORIES" By Jewell Parker Rhodes Atria Books ($20)

There must be thousands of "You know you're ghetto if" jokes around. Thankfully, there seem to be fewer and fewer of them every day.

Unfortunately, remnants of such jokes will live on for decades, I'm afraid, as people -- black and white, professional and working-class -- grow comfortable using the term "ghetto" to describe anyone and everything from the inner city, especially when they view them or it as useless, lazy, uncouth or of poor quality.

That's what's so wonderful about Pittsburgher Jewel Parker Rhodes' new book, subtitled "A Grandmother's Guide to Happiness."

Her grandmother, Ernestine -- like mine and a million other inner-city grannies -- would never have tolerated such jokes about the communities in which they made their homes, raised their babies and witnessed the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, the black power movement and hip-hop.

Rhodes was raised in her grandmother's home on the North Side. The three-story, crumbling brick house wasn't as much of a problem as it was an opportunity for Grandma Ernestine to pass on some of life's most marvelous lessons to her precious Jewell.

"At night, our neighborhood became mythical," Rhodes says, "a long, thin street with weak street lamps, bright fireflies, and soulful aromas of collards and fatback, fried onions, and sugar snap peas."

In reality, Rhodes and her family didn't have a porch. They were too poor for that. They had steps, though, that led to a vestibule, and like many inner-city dwellers they sat on those stoops when the sweltering heat from inside became unbearable, or the call of the outdoors became irresistible.

Call it what you will, the porch was where grandma wove magic, made sense of a sometimes crazy world, and shaped Rhodes' character and consciousness.

Reading Rhodes' words is like sitting on a sun-filled porch and sipping a cup of chamomile tea -- soothing. Her grandmother becomes your grandmother, whose mother-wit makes you want to take notes and pass down a little something to your own honey child.

When Grandma Ernestine talks to Rhodes about "that time of month," she doesn't go to the store for a 120-page book to help her explain. She conjures up stories from her own childhood. And the reader, along with Rhodes, believes grandmother when she tells her, "You're a month of Sundays. A dozen years of thanksgiving ... connected to mother earth -- the big blue world -- the robins, sky, mountains, and dirt."

Who wouldn't want to walk into womanhood, hearing words like those?

Grandmother also threw a mean party. When she told Rhodes it was Block Party Day, everyone got busy. "It was a door-to-door, porch-to-porch banquet of summertime foods: watermelon slices, carrots sliced with pineapple and raisins, and best of all, ice cream floating in Hawaiian Punch," Rhodes remembers.

Through Rhodes' eyes you become a kid again, laughing at grown men pulling off their shoes and kicking puddles, and women fresh from work, flinging off their heels, tossing their purses and "whirling ropes of a Double Dutch game."

When Grandma Ernestine spoke, Rhodes listened. Not because she was forced to, but because even at the tender age of 10, she knew sound advice when she heard it.

For example:

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness: This one takes on a new meaning when you're cleaning chitlins -- pig innards -- or trying to keep your husband's bloodstained butcher uniform in mint condition, while at the same time teaching your grandchildren never to think less of themselves.

"Live purposely -- there are things in this world you are meant to do."

"A piece of string can be more precious than pearls."

"Share your own porch stories."

Despite Grandma Ernestine's front porch view, life for her wasn't always easy. Nor did it end well. Grandma raised generations of grandbabies, always dreaming, it seems, of returning South to pick pole beans and sit on a real front porch.

And while readers will relish in the beauty of Grandma Ernestine's keen observations, every now and then, one notices that she sounds more like a Carnegie Mellon graduate (Rhodes' alma mater), than a granny from around the way.

The beauty of "Porch Stories," however, is that such tales could be told on any front porch in any city in America. Yet they aren't. The love in this book unfolds in areas of towns where people sometimes dread to go, but where tales of wisdom and wonder are still being woven today by inner-city grannies who know that we are all lost without them.