Here We Go.. ....... Round the Mulberry Bush

I spent a half hour sitting in the swing on my front porch this week. “Porch sitting” is a family tradition.

Porch where I grew up.

The house (with original owners) was built in the late 1860's
and the porch went half way around the house. They must
have enjoyed porch sitting too.

One of my earliest memories is related to porch sitting. My grandmother, mother and aunt were sitting on the porch sipping iced tea when I stuck a hairpin into an electric socket inside the house. The fuse box was on the porch wall. It made a really loud noise popping and sparking as it shut down the power and probably saved my life. My adventure in electrical power resulted in my explanation, “I fall down, Mommy!” and a much deserved swat to my backside.

The same threesome plus my grandfather, father and uncle were porch sitting when my brother (aided by my cousin) hit the baseball. It broke the window behind my grandmother’s head. That was one infraction that did not draw a single reproof from any of the men, because my grandfather had carved out the bat for my brother.

During childhood my porch sitting consisted of seeing how high I could make the swing go, or whether I could make the swing into a train by making it move sideways with my feet stuck out under the arm rest. Much of my porch time was spent playing with a litter of beagle pups, often dressing them in doll clothes. Another great porch activity was baking mud pies and making a mess that I would eventually have to clean up with the broom and garden hose.

Teenage porch sitting was a solitary activity, usually accompanied by a book from the bookmobile. When not reading on the porch, I was talking on the phone. (Yes, there were no cell phones.) I moved the phone as far as possible toward the door and then stretched the receiver cord so I could sit on the floor of the porch by the front door. Talk went on there for hours.

As I grew older I became one of the adult porch sitters…

Ø Sharing the events of the day,

Ø Deciding what to prepare for dinner (the noon meal) tomorrow.

Ø Snapping beans or shelling peas….

Ø Listening to stories I had heard a hundred times before and some I had never heard.

Ø Listening to the spring peepers, or the deep, deep croak of an old bull frog at the pond.

Ø Sometimes just watching the grass grow or

Ø Spotting the wildlife roaming the meadow, usually deer, an occasional fox or, now, a coyote,

Ø Spotting the groundhog standing up to view the world from the calf lot next to the barn.

We would sit and watch for the barn swallows to arrive (on March 17^th every spring). The red winged black birds would dive after an interloper (usually a cat) approaching the pond. We could hear the wild turkeys calling one another from somewhere near the top of the hill. In the background there was the sound of a beagle calling out as it scented and gave chase to a rabbit.

Evening porch sitting came with special activities besides swatting mosquitoes. Sometimes we would watch the kids catching lightning bugs and putting them in jars. Or they would get a flashlight and look for “night crawlers” (earthworms) for a possible fishing expedition to the pond. Often a game of hide and seek would develop. As a porch sitter I was just aware of what the kids were doing, but never hovered or involved with what they were doing, unless some critter needed identification or, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a gift.

My porch.

We spent time talking about how pretty the peonies were and whether they would be ready by Memorial Day. We talked about Aunt Jessie’s recipe for pickles and why they never turned out when we prepared them. I asked Aunt Pearl what ingredient she was leaving out of her peanut butter fudge recipe, since mine never tasted or looked like hers. We all laughed, because I had been asking her this question since I was old enough to make fudge. Does anyone need some more ice tea?