The Porch Sitter

Maria shared a photo of a Glider and talked about how much she used to love to sit outside and glide back and forth for hours. That started me thinking of how little people sit on their porches today.

It was a ritual back in the day that before and after a meal was eaten, the men and the children would go outside. The men would sit on the porch and tell tall tales about fish that jumped right into the boat or catching one that was the biggest catfish you ever saw, while children played Hopscotch or climbed trees or shot marbles inside a circle drawn in the sand.

Nowadays children don't look up long enough to play an outside game or be yelled at for going in and out of a house because they stay in, lost in the glow of an Iphone or tablet.

Porch sitting in my family has been a time honored tradition for as long as I can remember. My first memories of porch sitting were when I would run down to Grandma's Creamer Peacock's house and I would sit on the swing and she in a rocker on the porch waiting for the washing to dry on the line. Then I could help take it in. While we sat, she would give us iced tea. Sweet iced tea. None of that non-sweetened stuff that is all the rage today. This one had enough sugar in it to float your eyeballs in the stuff. I didn't come down from the sugar rush for half a day. lol

On our own porch , we had a wooden swing and a glider at one time or another and rocking chairs. Donna still has the rocking chair that mama rocked us all in. I loved seeing it when I was home. I remember many summer days spent shelling peas and butterbeans til your fingers hurt so bad you almost cried. But those memories are some of the best of my life. Swinging on the front porch with a birds eye view of any vehicle that may come down the dusty clay road. You could see it going long after it went from all the dust spread about by it going by. People didn't have air conditioning and the windows were down and kids rode on the back of the truck. We did that and many times you would see us holding onto the lip going down the road. When the truck would stop, we would get a mouth full of dirt if we turned around so we stood still, looking straight ahead til the worst of it was past.

My Grandpappy Morris for whom Morristown road was named, was a notorious porch sitter. and I use Notorious because you could get yourself shot at if you weren't careful. Now I don't know that anyone was ever hit but I do know that people got shot at. He considered it unneighborly for you to pass by the house and if he was sitting on the porch, he expected a nod or a wave or something to acknowledge he was there and if you didn't you sure remembered too the next time. lol.

This is the story as told to us ( Donna and I) by Aunt Elma. William (Bud) would sit on the front porch of the old wooden house he built. He always wore the six gun on his hip and one day in particular, someone came driving a rig down the road. In those days and with the quiet all around, you could hear the buggy wheels a distance away and Bud would be waiting for them in his rocker. As they approached the house, he would leave his chair, walk down the steps and look to the direction of the noise. He was awaiting the arrival of the buggy passing his home.
If by chance you saw him, it would be neighborly to wave, tip your hat or raise your hand with the reins in them, to acknowledge that you saw him and to say Good morning or Good day.
Many people would wave and give him the neighborly response he felt should be given, by anyone that had any manners at all to speak about. In the event you passed by his home without the acknowledgment that he was standing there, you would only do that once. He would draw his six gun and proceed to start shooting in your direction to remind you, that the next time you went by his house, you best be on your best manners and be neighborly.
Aunt Elma chuckled as she told me this. It is amusing when you think of it now, but I bet if you had that happen to you, you would be thinking of a different route the next time you wanted to go to town. I am sure that if you did take the same route by the house and saw him step off the porch, you would not only tip your hat and wave, but pull on the horse's reins to make them turn their head in the general direction of him too. He was a special kind of porch sitter!

We always sat on Aunt Arbelle's porch shelling pecans and jumping off the high porch they had. There was a row of rockers on their front porch , enough for every one to sit a bit if you happened to be passing by or waiting for a pie.

Those days of porch sitting were some of my happiest memories. Swinging while eating a pear or tomato or just watching for the next time a car came past or horses. I loved it when someone would ride the horses by. The clop clop of hooves still fills me with a calm that many people miss today. The smell of beans and peas, or peanuts or corn are the smells of my childhood, swinging on a front porch, awaiting company or just a car to come by.

When I went home in 2011 to visit Donna , there was the old swing. Where daddy sat and took splinters out of my feet, or where he strung the cane pole in the rafters above, or just sitting together on a Sunday after church waiting for the noon day meal. I hope that some of you still have a swing on your front porch and I hope that children still swing on them while listening to the elders talk about a simpler life.... Love to all, Kimmee

(this is the special rocker I had in my home til I got sick and everything was sold. I rocked my baby in it and it was a great rocker. I hope that someone is rocking babies in it still )