I love porches. My patio is located by my front door so it’s a kind of hybrid porch and as I was sitting out there this morning I remembered fondly some of the porches I’ve known. Too bad there’s not a way to distill the unique pleasure we all find in certain memories so we can gift them to others. Words can only try. Here’s one porch I loved and the person who went with it.
The old stone house my great grandparents built in southeastern Minnesota had a screened-in porch on the side of it overlooking a barnyard and woods up the hill beyond. The screens were half covered with ivy and the sun got to peek through at certain times of day. What makes that porch stand out in my memory is the way it lent me comfort one afternoon when I was not feeling well. Aunt Ida let me lie down on the daybed on the porch and plumped a pillow for me to rest my head on. After a few loving words she sent my brother, Danny, and her children, Bobby and Donna Mae outdoors to play in the sand bank on the other side of the house.
It was the first time I really noticed that old porch. A few birds chattered in the trees outside and a cool breeze drifted in soothing my feverish brow. Aunt Ida softly hummed a few old songs as she sat on the edge of the bed while I lay there soaking up the peace and serenity I felt. In a while I fell asleep and when I woke up I felt fine. All my discomfort was gone but I stayed on the daybed enjoying the pleasure of that old porch. I could hear a few bees buzzing around the flowerbed under the windows and in the barnyard below Uncle Earl’s cows strolled into the barn, mooing to let him know it was time for milking. By then the sun’s last rays sprinkled through the ivy and at that tender age, around six or seven, I knew that farm porches were for people of all ages. Uncle Earl, who had washed out by the pump would come in for dinner after working in the hot summer sun all morning and sit on the wicker chair out on the porch. Later maybe Aunt Ida would find time to darn some socks out there. And sometimes a child whose work was play needed a nap closer to Mama than his upstairs bed. What sweet comfort, that daybed, its soft down pillow, auntie’s tender voice and the music of a farmyard was to me that day! Funny, isn’t it, how a screened-in country porch can stay so fresh for so many years in this great grandma’s mind?
My patio-porch lacks only three things today. A daybed, ivy covered screens, and Aunt Ida.
Boy-oh boy do I remember that day bed and the screened porch. It was all still there 30 years after you rested there. I'm sure the pillows and linens were newer, but after an early morning of putting up hay in the two Summers I spent at G'pas and G'ma's, and the hayin' days at Uncle Earl and Aunt Ida's place, we'd come in all famished and Aunt Ida and G'ma too, I think, would have prepared a "groaning board" dinner that was so good we all ate and ate. And then, that porch beckoned and we all flaked out for about an hour and a half while the sun moved past top dead center. How sweet was that sleep! Then Uncle Earl's voice would say, "Okay boys, let's get at it! And Buster Johnson (who was just a little older but much more experienced at haying) and I would go back out with Uncle Earl to the fields and then load the bales of hay up the elevator belt to the barn until sundown. Aunt Ida was such a gentle creature. I never will figure out how Uncle Earl got her to marry him! Ha-ha! 'Twas fun to think of that porch again, thanks to you, Mom.
ReplyDeleteWally, Your comment cheered me so! I'm so glad you had those summers back in Minnesota! Your memories more than compliment mine. Much love, Mom
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