Today’s guest post was written by Brenda Kay Ledford.
Photo courtesy of Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
Memories flood my mind as I sit on the front porch. Perhaps it is the taste of buttermilk, the smell of cornbread baking in Grandma Minnie’s Dutch oven over the fireplace, or the sorghum syrup Granddaddy Bob made each fall from cane.
The family rose before the rooster crowed to tackle the hot, hard, job of stripping blades from cane. After cutting them down, you put the cane into piles and cut off the seed heads. Then Granddaddy and the boys loaded the cane on a wagon and hauled it to the mill. A mule pulled the pole that turned the mill. Cane was fed into the vertical rollers like a washing machine. Juice squeezed from the cane and flowed down a spout to the boiler where it was boiled from one vat to another. You skimmed foam off the top until it came out a nice clear brownish-red color. Dozens of yellow jackets swarmed and you had to keep them out of the syrup. Our family made 90 gallons of sorghum syrup. The labor paid off when you savored the rich, thick, sorghum on hot, buttered biscuits.
Besides making sorghum syrup, Great-Grandpa Dallas Matheson owned 300 acres of land on Shewbird Mountain. He was a farmer and grew an apple orchard above the frost line. He raised the black beauty that was so red it looked black. The Ben Davis was light with small streaks and white inside. Other apples included the horse apple, hog sweet, red June, striped May, pumpkin apple, queen pippin, pound apple, and others with no names. Each fall our family took a sled and mule to Shewbird Mountain and hauled apples to the house to store them in the cellar. Grandma and the girls dried apples on trays outside in the sun.
I ponder the good old days on the front porch. We had no air-conditioners and it was a taste of heaven resting on the porch each evening as a breeze wafted over the valley. Neighbors would stop for a visit and we enjoyed swapping a few stories as lightning bugs flashed. Brother Harold and I caught them in Blair canning jars and pretended they were our lanterns.
Many homes have no front porches now. Families are missing a wonderful slice of the bygone days.
—Brenda Kay Ledford
Reprinted from: GOOD OLD DAYS, A Poetry and Prose Anthology; Published by: Old Mountain Press: www.OldMountainPress.com
I hope you enjoyed Brenda’s memories as much as I do. She lives just up the road from me and for many years has helped preserve our Appalachian culture through poetry, storytelling, and writing. You can visit her blog here. And if you ever get the chance to hear Brenda read her writings or tell a story take it because you will certainly enjoy it.
Last night’s video: Granny Loves Cornmeal Gravy Cooked in an Iron Skillet.
Tipper
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WE USED TO SIT ON THE FRONT PORCH SWING AND HELP MOMMA STRING BEANS WHILE DAD PLAYED HIS FRENCH HARP. HE HAD A (HONER) THAT IS THE BEST KIND OF FRENCH HARP. WE WOULD SIT THERE USUALLY ON A SATURDAY NIGHTAND I WOULD HELP MOM STRING GREEN BEANS FOR SUNDAY MEAL AFTER CHURCH. MY SISTER WAS TOO YOUNG AND MY BROTHER WOULD BE PLAYING FIDDLE STICKS OR SOMETHING ELSE. MOM WAS A VERY GOOD COOK . AFTER IT WOULD GET DARK WE WOULD GO INSIDE AND DO OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON WHEN WE WERE THROUGH WITH THAT AND DAD HAD READ A FEW VERSES FROM THE BIBLE DAD WOULD TURN ON THE RADIO AND WE WOULD LISTON TO AMOS AND ANDY. FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY TARZAN, BABY SNOOKS AND ARTHUR GODFREY. DRAGNET. AND OTHERS. AFTER WE GOT OUR BLACK N WHITE ZENITH TV(NO REMOTE BUT RABBIT EARS) MY MOM LIKED . ED SULLIVAN AND THE LENNON SISTERS, RED SKELETON, OZZIE AND HARRIET, JACK BENNY. THE LIFE OF RILEY,,FATHER KNOWS BEST AND LATER THERE WAS BONANZA. TIPPER I ALWAYS FEEL BETTER EVERY TIME I READ WHAT YOU AND OTHER FOLKS PUT ON YOUR WEB SITE. THEN THERE WERE THE NEWS CASTERS LIKE EDWARD R MURROW CHET HUNTLY AND DAVID BRINKLEY. WALTER CRONKITE, AND THE PROGRAM THAT WAS (THIS IS YOUR LIFE. I GET SO NOSTALGIA. AND BACK THEN WE AMERICANS BELIEVED EVERY THING THEY SAID. UNLIKE TODAY (WHO DO WE BELIVE ON THE NEWS SHOWS) GOD BLESS EVERYONE WHO READS THIS. TIPPER PLS TELL THE DEER HUNTER THERE WAS A VERY LARGE DOE EATING THE GRASS IN MY BACK YARD ABOUT DUSK THE OTHER EVENING, CHARLIE MY DOG RAN IT BACK INTO THE WOODS. I HAVE TO USE A FLASH LIGHT BEFORE HE GOES OUT AS THERE ARE A LOT OF COYOTES IN THIS AREA . THANKS AGAIN ALL OF YOU PEOPLE WHO LEAVE POST I READ ALL OF THEM.
Brenda, I really enjoyed reading your story. It brought back so many memories for me. In the past, people didn’t always have the luxury of true patio furniture,or even a porch swing. Often, they would just use dinning room chairs. I have done memories of my family gathering on the front porch during the summer, all of us standing and enjoying watermelon together.
Some of my best childhood memories come from Grandma’s back porch. There was nothing my brother and I enjoyed more than spending the night (or two or three or more) ) with Ma and Grandpa. Actually, during WW II, we stayed with them while Mama & Daddy worked at the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta making B29 bombers in support of the war. Mama was so proud to be among those called Rosie the Riveter. I remember lazy summer days during that time on Grandma’s back porch helping her snap beans or shell peas, churn butter, crack walnuts, and more, while watching the chickens roam free in the yard. Grandpa loved to eavesdrop on me as I followed the chickens around and “talked” to them as they clucked and scratched in the yard. Grandpa loved to tell the story about the time he overheard me talking to an old hen. According to him, I said, “Ol’ Hen, you’re a good ol’ hen. You lay lots of eggs in Ol’ Pol’s stable, but you can’t talk, though, can you, Ol’ Hen?” Oh, for those good ol’ days on Grandma’s back porch!
Randy, I also remember the lst black and white box television that sat on our old library table for years. The lst telephone lines, about 6 parties there-on and the “noisy” ones who would try to silently pick up the line to listen in. HA!
Randy, We do not know each other , my early years were spend in a “hollow” in West Virginia, I was born in 1948. Do I ever remember the front porch, the old swing, rocking chairs, cane bottom straight back chairs that I stringed, and broke beans while sitting in , also looked to the turn in the road hoping for company on a Sunday afternoon. Memories are wonderful, thank you for triggering one of mine. Its truly a shame that so few new houses of today have porches, the loss of family time to form a home instead of a house. I moved after the fire in 2018 in Paradise, Ca. to my present location, fortunately was able to find an older house with a back porch at least looking out over the neighborhood.
This talk of of front porches brings a heartache to me. When my wife retired in September she said she wanted a 2 seat “glider” chair and wanted it placed on our front porch so she could sit in it and watch the cars go by. We gave her one for Christmas and she set in it for a few minutes on Christmas Day and then it was covered up waiting for warmer spring of the year weather. She died on April 15, that is the one and only time anyone has set in the chair, it is still covered up.
I enjoyed Brenda’s story of her memories of sitting on her grandparents porch. I have many fond memories of sitting and socializing with family and neighbors on my childhood home front porch. We had our family cookouts on our back patio, even though it was small we all seemed to have enough room for our immediate family. Once all us kids grew up and had families of our own we had to go out to local parks to have our cookouts. Once we started going to our local park we started inviting all our extended families, which was fun. However, I think the most cherished memories I have are those we made on our front porch. I think I can honestly say it was our neighborhood gathering place.
Sunday afternoons spent on the front porch with family. There was nothing more special.
Gloria I remember when the adult children and grandchildren would visit their parents and sit on the front porches on Sunday afternoons. I also remember when Sunday was respected and most everything closed on Sunday and families went to church and families would visit one another in the afternoon between church services. We lived beside of my maternal Grandparents but would go eat, and spend several hours each Sunday afternoon sitting on the front porch during warm weather with my paternal Grandparents every Sunday after church. They lived about 25 miles away in Due West, SC.
My wife and I are 83 years old and 30 years ago we built our retirement home in the Northern most part of San Jacinto County Texas. It is 1 1/2 stories with a steep pitched roof. The siding on the house is 1×12 rough cedar.
It has a 7 foot wide porch that encircles the whole house. So if we get tired of sitting on the front porch we can simply move to any one of the other thre porches. You can never have to many porches!
We had a big wrap around porch and my dad would sleep out on the porch in the hot summer, many a night, flat on the wood with no mattress. We didn’t have air conditioning in E Central IL.. I have a big porch on my house and spend many hrs on the swing in the early morning hrs studying the bible. It’s amazing how loud the bird sing at daybreak, while the humans finally quiet themselves! My third grandbaby was born last Fri and the kids named her Reign Avanell. Reign is for “He” reigns and Avanell is my grandmother’s name, what a surprise for us!!
The last time I saw people sitting on their porches was when I visited eastern KY on Memorial Day. Porches are still a favorite place to visit, relax, break green beans, and eat watermelon in my hometown. Most of the houses built with porches in the town where I live now are decorated with pretty chairs that never get used. My porches are filled with swings and chairs that get used more than any seat inside my house.
My maternal grandmother’s house had a front porch and a back porch. We always gathered on the back porch because it was shady. No air conditioning either. Good memories.
I’ve noticed young families are doing more gardening, canning, remodeling or building the Sears Robuck craftsman style houses with front porches and a swing. That’s a good thing!
Everyone have a good day. pray for our country
Brenda’s memories of her front porch brought back sweet ones of summer evenings spent on my grandparents’ front porch, watching heat lightning in the distance and savoring any breeze that blew past our heads, not to mention all those Saturday afternoons spent breaking green beans and shucking
corn for Sunday’s dinner, shared by most of the local family, aunts, uncles, cousins. Those days are long
gone, as are most of my older family members, but oh, how I miss them all and the time spent together.
I agree with Randy that overdevelopment is killing so much of our flora and fauna. Families live too far apart these days to spend time or Sunday dinners together and most of them don’t understand how much they’ve lost.
Thanks for sharing this, Tipper.
That was a lovely story. I enjoyed it very much!
I have spent many a good hour on the porch with my aunts and grandma laughing. I recall aunt MELSTER saying “it’s so hot in there you could cremate Groucho Marx!” Then she and me would sleep on the porch in the cool of the night. It was great fun and I sure do miss all the fun we had there on that front porch. I ride by and look but it’s not the same. It won’t ever be the same…. Much love to you all and blessings so many you’ll have to get baskets to catch them all!!!!
Growing up we didn’t have much of a front porch but we had a big back porch. There was also a tree that provided a natural canopy which made it a wonderful place to sit on summer evenings. I now live in an apartment with no real porch. While I’m thankful for a roof over my head, I do miss having a porch or patio. Especially on summer evenings.
One of God’s great blessings is sitting on the porch with family.
good morning, when we were children we went to Grandma’s house, and Mama’s brothers still lived at home with Grandma, and we sat on the porch, and our uncles would call us porch monkeys, curtain climbers, and cookie crushers, Mama’s brothers were ugly, ugly in their ways, they had no secrets, they hid nothing from children, they didn’t care who was present they said what they wanted to, God help
I enjoy nothing better than sitting on my porch with my cup of coffee. Listening to my goats talking to me. They are saying come on mom finish that cup and come feed us. Y’all have a blessed day kiss those babies hug granny and get to work.
You are right, Randy, I grew up with my grandparents and we had a large front porch and they raised cane but it must have been years earlier because all I know is the land called the cane bottom. I loved that front porch where I went to eat a biscuit hot from the oven until it was our turn to eat.
I love my porch memories. I think the best one was with a neighbor. She asked me to go get her a Cheer…no, not that kind that you used to wash cloths, the kind you SIT in…as in a Chair. But that was her southern accent. I still smile at the memories even though it was almost 70 years ago. I do believe that NOT having porches on our home for people to gather is what is basically wrong with our Country. We did solve a lot of problems on the front porch. Prayers for Granny and you guys along with God’s Blessings.
We lived beside of my maternal grandparents. Their home had a large front porch with a swing and several wooden rocking chairs and four large water oak trees in their front yard to shade it. We would often go visit with them in the summertime evenings and sometimes help each other shell peas, butter beans or break green beans. Grandaddy always got up before daylight and would often times take a nap on his front porch after eating dinner (noontime) before going back to working in the afternoon. At onetime he had a syrup mill but it was before I was born. Hot homemade biscuits, home churned butter and sorghum syrup or molasses are hard to beat. I would catch and put lightening bugs in jars when I was a kid, nowadays I don’t see many of them, I guess all of this “development “ going on is destroying them along with so much other wildlife. I think this world would be a better place and families would be a lot closer to one another if all homes had a large front porch and more time was spent on the porch together with family, friends and neighbors.
Hey Randy, catching jars full of lightning bugs was one of the best parts of my childhood summer evenings. We got our first TV when I was in 5th. grade (yep, I am just that old!) and I am so thankful that a lot of my childhood was TV-less or I would likely have missed the magic of summer nights and lightning bugs. I always let mine go free when my mom yelled for me to come inside, but some kids punched holes in the metal lids are tried to keep their bugs. The thing that sticks out the most about them was the way my palms smelled after wrangling a bunch of lightning bugs. It was a weird smell that I have never smelled except on lightning bugs. Maybe sensitivity to this smell is just a girl thing. By the time my kids came along, we had moved to Texas and there weren’t many lightning bugs for them to catch. When my grandkids were little, if I saw a lightning bug once or twice during the summer I would try to catch it and immediately take it over to show them. Don’t know if it’s the heat or the lower humidity where I live, but there are virtually no lightning bugs in Austin now. Sad to hear that there are fewer in North Carolina as well. Now on the very rare occasion that I see one I silently wish him well and hope he finds a mate. I have read that in certain parts of the Smokies, lightning bugs synchronize their flashes. That is one light show I would love to see!
I watched sorghum molasses being made – we called it molasses in Kentucky but I assume it was the same thing. My dad loved it and always came home with a couple of gallon size metal buckets of the stuff. I didn’t care for it and preferred fruit jams and jellies or maple syrup. We had Log Cabin brand syrup in the metal tins that were painted to look like log cabins. Remember those? Many years later when I first tasted real, 100% maple syrup from up north, I realized that most of what was in that cute little tin came from corn or sugar cane, not maple trees.
Patricia, I am not asking your age, but I was born on Feb. 20, 1954. I remember when we got our first small black and white tv at the Anderson, SC Sears store. I also remember getting a telephone in the mid 60’s and it being on either a six or eight party line. We only went to Greenville, SC 2-3 times a year, I remember my Daddy walking up the Main Street in Greenville carrying our first ice cream churn. It would have been in the late 50’s or early 60’s.
I’m 82 years old. I grew up in Raleigh in an old house (built around 1900), that was more than a bit of a wreck, that had no central heat (unless you call back to back fireplaces in the 2 main rooms central heating) nor air conditioning. It did have a porch across the front and half the South side. My Pa sat on the porch every evening after supper except during the coldest Winter days. Some of my most fond memories are of time spent on that porch listening to the adults – family, neighbors, and friends – talking about events of the day and telling stories from their past. It was common to invite passersby to come sit a spell and equally common for them to do so. We met an emigre from Switzerland (the country) that way who became a good friend.
Those days came to an end when we got a TV when I was 13. I have come to believe that air conditioning – which caused us to choose to be indoors rather than outside – and TV were the 2 worst 20th Century phenomena. The former removed us from that front porch comeraderie that exposed the family to what others were thinking and doing while the latter became the source of propaganda, most of which has harmed the nation and its people, in my opinion. Does anyone here watch network TV any more?
Although it has probably been said by every older generation of younger ones throughout history, I feel sorry for those generations that missed the experience of the front porch.