End of an era…
I’m sad tonight… I just spent the last porch evening ever… it was one of the things I remember most fondly about my dad; spending time on the front porch, and especially on the 4th of July. Woodville’s celebration/fireworks brings tons of people into town and most of them file right past our front porch. So we’d make it an annual event. For the past 34 years, I’ve sat on that porch and watched people stream by… the last 4 w/o my dad… and tonight was the last time it’ll ever happen. *sigh* We didn’t even stay for fireworks. Instead came home and I gave the dog a bath. I’m bummin…
2 comments July 03 2005 9:01 pm | Pepperguy | Grant
Grant,
I certainly understand the perspective from which you guessed you’d spent the “last porch evening ever,” but the English teacher in me (along with the terminal optimist) forces me to suggest more accurate language. Only because I too have recently lost my dad and for various, unrelated reasons am no longer welcome on some of the best porches in my hometown can I offer this correction. My real motivation comes from something deeper though… it’s my constant desire to want to help (read: meddle with) someone who has helped others and looks beyond the immediate problems, which hold most people back, in search of solutions. I don’t know you that well, but there’s something about your whole Elmore group that leads me to believe I’m right about that. OK, that’s more than enough introductory preface. Here it is:
You haven’t spent your last porch evening ever; you have only spent your last evening on that porch in that town. If you think about it from this perspective, that porch isn’t the one you remember anymore anyway, nor is the town, but there will be other porches, other evenings, other towns and all of them will become equally magical in their own contexts.
The next time you find or even suspect porch possibilities, try this: choose one of those songs that takes you back, have a favorite beverage handy (maybe one you’ve shared with your dad), or grab an old book or newspaper or school yearbook if you’re not in company, and allow yourself to make that new porch, new town, new company a new porch memory.
The therapeutic value of people watching from a porch or similar perch is beyond question and is only partially linked to a specific porch or town. I suspect your back yard clip may offer similar opportunities and thus evidence of what I’m failing to sublimely relate. As will your new home out west.
Having spewed all of that, I must admit that on some level you were correct in your post and on most levels I have no business telling you otherwise, but I have experienced both the sadness of lost porches as well as the joy of discovering new ones too many times to give up that easily. I suspect you have as well and just didn’t make the connection when creating that post for those reasons we frail humans choose to suffer rather than celebrate. By the same notion, were it not for occasional suffering, self-induced or otherwise, we could never appreciate true celebration.
You’ll find another porch. You’ll impart its magic to others. One day they will suspect that they will have spent their “last porch evening” too. By then we’ll all know just how off the mark that is.
Hang in there brother, and thanks for providing such a heartfelt link to home for those of us who are searching for a porch in another world… that gives me an idea for my next post – I’ve got to go take some pictures of improvised porches! I’ll type at ya later.
Luth
[…] Well, I was fine all day long, but now… for some reason… sadness and depression have snuck up and hit me square in the chest. Why? Because it’s the 4th of July. America’s Independance Day. I don’t have The Porch. I blogged about it last year, but guess it’s only really hitting me right now. […]