Photo Courtesy Sodahead.com
Front Porch
College Street in Greenville, Kentucky in the 1930s was a fun place to live and grow. Family and a host of good buddies with whom to share endless boyhood activities made it so. Those memories linger still.
In addition to those boyhood memories, there were the memories of certain adults up and down our street who found a place for us in their hearts. Their busy daily routine all the while nurturing us children with their patient love and care made a lasting impression.
One such couple was a dear lady and her husband who lived on our side of the street, two doors north, toward the Depot. Ruby and Eliza Vick were wonderful and caring neighbors. They had no children of their own. As good Methodist, they simply adopted us all, without thought of religion or politics, rich or poor. They loved us for who we were, little kids with unfulfilled and limitless possibilities.
While all of the houses along the street had front porches, porches that were frequently used late in the afternoon after the husbands returned from a hard days work at the mines, and with the dinner meal over, dishes washed, bathed for the evening, many of these couples and families were found sitting on their front porches enjoying the early evening air. Air Conditioning was a thing of the future.
Ruby and Eliza were not only good neighbors, kind, thoughtful and helpful. They loved us kids. I don't understand why. We were always in and out of mischief of one form or another, nothing serious, just fun kinds of things. Yet, the Vicks loved us in spite of it all. With the passing of the years, we never forgot.
One of the things I remember about this dear couple was their front porch. During the late, hot summer afternoons, the Vick's front porch was a favorite neighborhood gathering spot for young and old. Aunt Liza, as us kids called her, caused the Ice Cold Lemonade and Delicious Cookies to flow in great abundance. We kids simply sat there, adults and young, accepting one another for who we were, and ate, drank, talked, kids mostly listening. Afterwards, we all went home, filled, happy, and at peace, and glad we got together, making plans for the next gathering.
Late one evening while comfortably sitting with friends from church on their beautiful front porch, it was dark, most of the light streaming from the Moon and Stars over head, as the sound of traffic was muffled off in the distance, the conversation was open, friendly and covered many topics. Before leaving, there in the dark, the four of us joined hands for a moment of silence and prayers from the heart. As we drove away, Velma and I thought this front porch visit was one to cherish and to remember.
Maybe what this troubled old world and restless neighborhoods need is to rediscover the therapy of the Front Porch. Could be we might rediscover the meaning of Brotherly Love and Genuine Community in the process.
The Rev. Billy Cox of Louisville, Ky., is a retired United Methodist clergyman and former Air Force chaplain.