Front Porches with Swings

I wish all houses had front porches.  I have a front door with a tiny stoop and I only meet my neighbors when they walk up and ring the bell. This isolates me. My world is split into inside and outside.

What happened to the front porch with a swing attached to the ceiling by two S hooks? Television happened. And air conditioning. The pleasantest spot after 5 o'clock used to be on the front porch. At least in the southeastern U.S. and from April to October. Not so much in the north, where the outdoor season was more like June, July, August. And not so much in the large cities where the liveliest entertainment was on the stage. Plays, opera, concerts, and so on.

But in Demopolis, Alabama or Sewanee, Tennessee it was the front porch where families sat and fanned themselves, rocked, swung, and threw up their hands at neighbors passing by on the sidewalk--or down the road, in little towns like the one I grew up in because we had no sidewalks. Passing neighbors often came up and rested a bit at the homes where the stories were worth a stop. Like my grandparents' porch where the stories were as good as anything on Broadway. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the southern story-telling tradition develop into a sort of art form.

The southeastern corner of the United States has spawned more than its fair share of great writers in spite of the fact that it isn't known for using good English. From Faulkner and Poe to Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe and Eudora Welty, the southern literary tradition is so firmly established it's sometimes capitalized, like an official title. These writers follow the cardinal rule of story-telling: Don't be boring.

On the front porch, stories were told and re-told and exaggerated until they ceased to resemble the events on which they were usually based. Almost. Credit for the fact that they didn't completely abandon all truth goes to the wives.

My grandfather was the story teller and he sat in a straight-back chair, ceding the swing and the rockers to his audience. By deep dusk listeners usually spilled down the steps, sat on the wide concrete sides, or stood with one foot on the bottom step unwilling to commit to an actual visit. You weren't visiting until you sat down.  My grandmother came out after she finished the supper dishes, offered iced-tea, and took a seat. My grandfather would continue his story with one eye on my grandmother, waiting for her interruptions whenever he wandered too far from the way it really happened.

Grandfather: He was doing ninety miles an hour . . .
Grandmother: That car wouldn't do more than forty.
Grandfather: Drank about a gallon . . .
Grandmother: A gallon, my foot. A gallon woulda killed him.

Children were not really welcome on the front porch. We were supposed to be catching lightning bugs or playing hide-and-seek. Kids needed exercise and did not need to hear some of the details in the stories. That's why I sneaked away from the game and hid under the forsythia beside the front steps.