The Front Porch.

[Billyd]

One of the many blessings of my youth was the front porch. Every house had one, and it was always fun to stop and visit the one sitting in the rocking chair. There usually was a swing, several chairs, and a rocking chair. The rocking chair was always for the oldest member of the family, and the toddlers when no one was in it. Every family had an elderly "aunt" or "uncle", and every aunt or uncle had stories to tell. Looking back, it would have been wonderful to have a recorder so I could remember them today. I'll try to remember some of them.

One of my favorites was my great aunt's story about the man who chopped his wife's head off. They found her, but he ran into the swamp, never to be seen again. The house was in the backwoods and still stood when I was young. The way she told it began with "the drunk old man beat his wife half to death", then chopped her head off with an ax. Then he ran into the swamp, and the woman keeps him there to this day. She walks around the house and down the fence line with her head in her hands at midnight every new moon. I don't know how many times I've gone by that fence line to see the woman. Never have seen her. Maybe I'll drive by next new moon. It may be my lucky day.

Maybe you old folks remember the rocking chair and the stories that you were told. Let us hear them.

I can't go without a Bible story. My grandfather told us how my grandmother's father let him court my grandmother. Her father would put a Bible between them on the porch swing, or the buggy seat when he took her for a ride. Grandpa said that every time he looked at Grandma, he saw the Bible too.

 

[passion84god]

Nice post. I'm not sure why, but it almost made me cry.

 

[seoulsearch]

Nice post. I'm not sure why, but it almost made me cry.

I have to agree -- the opening post was beautiful, and thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us, @Billyd. It made me feel like I truly missed out on an era.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to add that will do your heart-warming story justice, but it reminds me of a sermon I once heard.

The pastor lamented the loss of front porches, noting that now everyone wanted backyards -- that they can put fences around -- to keep their neighbors out as much as possible.

I never even realized this because I don't remember a time when people would fellowship together on their front porches.

May God restore the sense of community within our neighborhoods!

 

[RodB651]

I was just thinking about the times when I was little and family would gather to shell peas and beans and talk about random things.

I miss those days!

 

[Lynx]

They didn't have air conditioning.

If we had a front porch I would not use it. I would still be inside with the air conditioning and away from mosquitoes.

I do like it though when the family gets together for a dinner and then adjourns to the living room, also for many, many stories. We have air conditioning, we have no mosquitoes and we have lots of stories. Lots and lots and lots.

 

[seoulsearch]

They didn't have air conditioning.

If we had a front porch I would not use it. I would still be inside with the air conditioning and away from mosquitoes.

This is a good point.

Sometimes there a few less-pretty truths behind even the best nostalgia...

I was just thinking about the times when I was little and family would gather to shell peas and beans and talk about random things.

I miss those days!

This was another reason why I was always fascinated by the South (Southern USA.)

I always wondered what it must be like to grow up sitting with Mee Maw and Co. on the porch, swinging the day away, all while drinking endless pitchers of Southern lemonade.

 

[Mem]

If we had a front porch I would not use it. I would still be inside with the air conditioning and away from mosquitoes.

I planted beebalm and other such weeds with mosquito repellent qualities, and I'm sitting right next to a schrub (which the beebalm is planted right next to, or was it actually lemon balm? I'll have to check again) with my 6mo grandson, and I was only bothered by a spider that jumped onto my leg that was easily swiped away. Shortly before that day I found a bottle of mosquito repellent torch fluid on clearance but failed to swing by ma's to grab a tiki torch before the gathering so haven't tried it out to see if was of any effect. Happily, it wasn't needed. After the rest of the crowd disbursed, and I went inside with my granddaugher and her dad and stepmom sat out talking with her peepaw, quite a distance from the beebalm really, and had not one complaint of mosquitos. It is my opinion the best time to sit out on the porch is the cooler times as the sun is coming up or as it is going down, though that is the peak time that mosquitos become active.

 

[Mem]

This is a good point.

Sometimes there a few less-pretty truths behind even the best nostalgia...

The downside of the beebalm is that it must've discouraged the fireflies to come around also. Although I did pick one off the top of the littlest guys big (4yo) brother's hair on the top of his head and he and his cousin (6mo his younger) argued over who would hold it. I wanted to console them that there was plenty to go around when the peculiarity occurred to me that there actually wasn't.

 

[Mem]

his cousin (6mo his younger)

correction: this one is 2mos his younger and the other is 6mos her younger... but the three are now all 4 yo for a spell. What a wonderful confusion to have though.

 

[Billyd]

The chicken yard.

Everyone had a chicken yard. Eggs were a great trade item at the local grocery store. Every chicken yard had a chicken house with a chicken roost. Grandpa would take advantage of us "youngens". Just after sundown he would say, "who's going to close the door to the chicken house?" We knew it wasn't going to be him. I usually got the job. The fun was chasing the last chicken around the chicken yard and into the house.

Grandma loved to plant flower beds. The flowers were always beautiful. Her secret was a layer of droppings from the chicken house about 6 inches under the bottom of her plants. On one occasion I was showing off my new red wagon, and Grandpa took advantage of my excitement. He told me that he would pay me a nickel to get Grandma a load of droppings from the chicken house. I jumped at the chance to earn a nickel. With the excitement of a five-year-old, I got my first load. Then I got another load, and another load, and another. Grandpa realized what I was doing and stopped me at the fifth load. Years later Grandpa would tell my boys, when they were complaining about their starting pay, "be happy, your dad's first paying job was hauling chicken crap at a nickel a load."

Grandpa always said, "when you had a job to do, remember Jesus said to go an extra mile".

 

[seoulsearch]

The chicken yard.

Everyone had a chicken yard. Eggs were a great trade item at the local grocery store. Every chicken yard had a chicken house with a chicken roost. Grandpa would take advantage of us "youngens". Just after sundown he would say, "who's going to close the door to the chicken house?" We knew it wasn't going to be him. I usually got the job. The fun was chasing the last chicken around the chicken yard and into the house.

Grandma loved to plant flower beds. The flowers were always beautiful. Her secret was a layer of droppings from the chicken house about 6 inches under the bottom of her plants. On one occasion I was showing off my new red wagon, and Grandpa took advantage of my excitement. He told me that he would pay me a nickel to get Grandma a load of droppings from the chicken house. I jumped at the chance to earn a nickel. With the excitement of a five-year-old, I got my first load. Then I got another load, and another load, and another. Grandpa realized what I was doing and stopped me at the fifth load. Years later Grandpa would tell my boys, when they were complaining about their starting pay, "be happy, your dad's first paying job was hauling chicken crap at a nickel a load."

Grandpa always said, "when you had a job to do, remember Jesus said to go an extra mile".

Stories like these are true treasures.

Please keep sharing them.

I don't know about anyone else, but reading these posts make me feel like I'm on a big swing porch, swinging away and listening in, and it's a wonderful thing.

May God bless your family richly!

 

[Lanolin]

I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time...

 

[Billyd]

An unknown visitor.

As usual, after church Sunday, we were sitting on the front porch waiting for the women to get lunch ready when a young man joined us. He joined in the conversation as if everyone knew him. He joined us for lunch and then the after-lunch conversation on the porch. After he left my grandma asked everyone who that "nice young man was". No one knew him. My grandpa looked at my grandma and replied "Mama, do you think it was Jesus?"

We never saw the man again, but I have often wondered if it was a visit from Jesus. It reminds me of what Jesus said. "If you did it to the least of them, you did it to Me".

 

[Bingo]

'Thank you all for sharing some "down home" memories. So often we all could
do with looking at a time that is and was away from this restless world that is upon us.
'Remembering being raised on a farm in the Midwest and growing up in the
50's and 60's is priceless. Old school, new school or no school, POOF here I am in
what I once said...the "Twilight Zone". And if you remember that one, bless you for making it this far!

Yeow! quote: "She walks around the house and down the fence line with her head in her hands at midnight every new moon."

I was not raised by my parents, but a devoted Christian grandmother. Anyway, one summer while
in grade school, I did spend a time during the summer with my mother. Across the street from the RV park
we were at, was an old cemetery with a fence down the side toward the park. Often we would see and hear this
old woman walking up and down the fence line chanting and babbling late at night, and she was draped in
something like a shawl. A spooky sight for sure, we assumed she had a head, LOL.

Thank you @Billyd for the words that brought this old memory up.

 

[ResidentAlien]

Indeed, I have many memories of the front porch from when I was a kid; too many to list. We had a swing but no chairs that I can remember. The "rails" were pretty big and we mostly just sat on those. We were always playing games and jumping from the rails. The picture below is modern, but it's still basically like it was back in the '60 & '70s.

We didn't have AC so we slept out there in the summer. When my brother and I got a little older we started sneaking off in the middle of the night and getting into trouble. I remember going out there when it rained. I especially remember one time after we came home from a rained-out Little League game, we were sitting out there and a torrential downpour hit. It was fun watching it from the front porch. Then there were the times in the summer when the DDT fogger trucks came through the neighborhood. Hard to believe now they actually did that back then.

 

[Lanolin]

My grandparents lived in an old villa/bungalow and it had a sort of porch but it was too small to have furniture on it.

The house I live in has a deck at the back and a verandah at the front, but the eaves don't cover it completely. We air blankets on the deck railing. The verandah has my pots of plants on the steps.

When my mum got older we would sit outside on plastic chairs on the deck and get some sun. The cat would walk on the railings.

Mum didn't tell me stories though - she scolded me!

My grandparents didn't tell stories either. Mostly they cooked food for us children. I'd love a covered porch but it does need to be wide enough for a swing chair. When we were children we'd sit on the steps or walk on the stone wall that was the property's fence.

 

[Lanolin]

Houses in Auckland are not too well designed. They either old and drafty or new and leaky. The newest townhouses get very hot in summer and practically have no eaves.

I think the old houses of Southern America are idyllic. Also who has seen Gone with the Wind? The first scene is Scarlett O'Hara sitting on the front porch of Tara with her two beaus.

Fiddle-dee-dee! War war war. This war talk's spoiling every party this spring! I get so bored I could scream!.

 

[Billyd]

The squirrel hunt.

My cousin and I were on our way to the woods to get a squirrel for supper. Grandpa was sitting on his rocking chair and up to something. We detoured by the porch. He asked us where we were going. We told him squirrel hunting, like he didn't already know. He invited himself to go with us. He went in the house and retrieved his 10 ga double barreled shot gun. We found our favorite spot and there was a squirrel waiting for us. He took my rifle and handed me his shot gun, said shoot him. As an obedient eight-year-old grandson, I obeyed. After I regained my balance, and got over his laughing at me stumbling around, I went to retrieve my squirrel. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of it. Over the years, he got a lot of laughs out of "Billy blowing away the squirrel".

I learned two valuable lessons. Beware of Grandpa inviting himself to participate in my activities and never go squirrel with a cannon (shotgun).

The Bible says, "children obey your parents". I'm not sure it means grandparents too.

 

[Lanolin]

My dad didn't obey his parents. His mum wanted him to help work in the family business, the fruit shop.
Dad didn't want to and got this own job. Then he got married to my mum, and had children (including me)

I didn't really learn much from it just that dad was a rebel who disobeyed his mother.

 

[Billyd]

The wig.

When we were younger, my wife had a wig for every occasion. On a visit to my grandparents, she was showing my grandma how easy it was to wear them, when they decided to see what grandma looked like in a long black wig.

Grandpa was sitting in the rocking chair reading the paper, and I was sitting on the edge of the porch watching my sons' play ball in the front yard. My wife and grandma slipped out the door, sat down in the swing and started talking to each other. I don't know what was said, but it got my grandpa's attention. He took one look at my grandma and her hair, and tears started running down his cheeks. He said, "Mama, you look like you did the day we got married."

What started out to be a joke, turned out to be one of the most precious moments of my life.