A wide welcoming front porch extended across the front of the house. Warm mornings, Daddy sat on the porch in a cane bottom straight chair leaning against the wall in the sunshine. No doubt arthritis plagued him and the warm sunshine soothed his aching joints. A couple of rocking chairs sat a few feet away in the shade of the overhanging roof. The edge of the porch was jagged and irregular from use and exposure to the sun and rain and an occasional whittling.
From spring through fall, the front porch was the center of activity, social and otherwise. In the spring we stretched out and warmed ourselves in the sun while Daddy sharpened the hoes before we went to the cotton field. Children and women had the job of chopping grass and weeds out of the cotton and during the first chopping, thinning the cotton.
The porch was a place to rest after lunch while Daddy sharpened the hoes once again. He laid the hoe on an old elm tree root, then taking the file, he ran it back and forth across the blade, leaning into the file to give it strength. Now and then he would pause to check the sharpness of the hoe by flipping his thumb along its blade. As long as we could hear the grind and screech of the file, we had another few minutes to nap. When he had sharpened all the hoes, we were off to the field for the longest afternoon you could imagine.
Summer days were filled with preserving vegetables and fruit. Mama would bring baskets of vegetables from the garden to front porch. There we settled in with pans in our laps to shell beans and peas, snap green beans, and peel apples under Mama's watchfull eye.
The porch served as an easy- to- clean table for cutting and serving watermelon and cantalope. No utencils were needed. Water melons were cut lengthwise making it easy to get to the juicy fruit. Mama cleaned the porch by throwing buckets of water on the soiled sticky puddles, then scrubbing the porch with a broom. She then rinsed with more buckets of water. As one who did a lot of the water pumping, I must say that my mother could use more water than anyone I knew.
The family gathered on the front porch on summer evenings. A welcome breeze always swept the length of the porch. A big elm tree and a large cotton wood tree shaded the front yard by day and their rustling leaves gave a voice to the gentle breeze in the evening.
The front porch was home base for many childhood games; Piggy wants a motion, Mother may I? and many more. Little ones played under the porch, making frog houses. We would check for frogs in the morning.
Other times we sat quietly on the porch listening to the evening noises; chattering guineas roosting high in the elm tree, cackling and squawking in the hen house as the chickens readjust seating positions on the roost. The live stock were relatively quiet except for an occasional whinny from our old jinny. Conversation was usually low key. You learned to wait as long as a minute or two for an answer to a question or responce to a statement. It wasn't that the question was hard or the statement needed thought. It was just the rhythm of a summer evening.
From spring through fall, the front porch was the center of activity, social and otherwise. In the spring we stretched out and warmed ourselves in the sun while Daddy sharpened the hoes before we went to the cotton field. Children and women had the job of chopping grass and weeds out of the cotton and during the first chopping, thinning the cotton.
The porch was a place to rest after lunch while Daddy sharpened the hoes once again. He laid the hoe on an old elm tree root, then taking the file, he ran it back and forth across the blade, leaning into the file to give it strength. Now and then he would pause to check the sharpness of the hoe by flipping his thumb along its blade. As long as we could hear the grind and screech of the file, we had another few minutes to nap. When he had sharpened all the hoes, we were off to the field for the longest afternoon you could imagine.
Summer days were filled with preserving vegetables and fruit. Mama would bring baskets of vegetables from the garden to front porch. There we settled in with pans in our laps to shell beans and peas, snap green beans, and peel apples under Mama's watchfull eye.
The porch served as an easy- to- clean table for cutting and serving watermelon and cantalope. No utencils were needed. Water melons were cut lengthwise making it easy to get to the juicy fruit. Mama cleaned the porch by throwing buckets of water on the soiled sticky puddles, then scrubbing the porch with a broom. She then rinsed with more buckets of water. As one who did a lot of the water pumping, I must say that my mother could use more water than anyone I knew.
The family gathered on the front porch on summer evenings. A welcome breeze always swept the length of the porch. A big elm tree and a large cotton wood tree shaded the front yard by day and their rustling leaves gave a voice to the gentle breeze in the evening.
The front porch was home base for many childhood games; Piggy wants a motion, Mother may I? and many more. Little ones played under the porch, making frog houses. We would check for frogs in the morning.
Other times we sat quietly on the porch listening to the evening noises; chattering guineas roosting high in the elm tree, cackling and squawking in the hen house as the chickens readjust seating positions on the roost. The live stock were relatively quiet except for an occasional whinny from our old jinny. Conversation was usually low key. You learned to wait as long as a minute or two for an answer to a question or responce to a statement. It wasn't that the question was hard or the statement needed thought. It was just the rhythm of a summer evening.
