Grandma's Porch

Growing up in Fairmont, I had a favorite place to come to when I needed a pick-me-up. It was Grandma's porch. Grandma Perry lived next door to us in a small house sitting on the crest of a hill. The house reminded me of a worker's cottage that you might have seen on a plantation in the deep South during the antebellum years. It wasn't fancy. It was more utilitarian. Down to earth. Down home.

And, the house had a large porch which didn't seem to be much on first glance. But, for me, it somehow carried a subtle context of character and culture that belied its appearance.

I didn't visit grandma too much, especially during my teenage years. I always found something better to do with my time than sit on that porch and talk to her while sipping her freshly made tea. Of course, that was my loss. She was a wonderful grandparent to me. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. I liked that. She was the only one who actually articulated that type of thought around me. Most of the time, I was the one who needed to do this, change that, work harder, do better, be better... But, grandma saw me differently. I was perfect in her eyes. I loved that attention and that unfaltering love which had no strings attached.

There was an old, rickety rocking chair which occupied the center of the porch area. She always let me sit and rock there while she sat to the side on a kitchen type stool. Looking back, I cringe at the notion that I felt that I needed to sit in the grand chair while she sat demurely to the side. But, being young and stupid, I never picked up on that nuance of social impropriety. But, her desire was to spoil me. And, I felt no compunction to counter that behavioral tendency.

Looking from the porch out to the North, a small strip mine operation was in full view. The operation was run by a father and two sons. They had two coal hauling trucks and a plethora of ancillary pieces of heavy equipment needed to collect the coal and deliver it to a few large industrial businesses which operated in the area. Most people who viewed the strip mine thought of it as an ugly eyesore. The owners mostly removed the top soil and retrieved the coal which was only a few feet below the soil line. They had also dug a tunnel into the ground and retrieved some of the coal from deposits a few hundred feet below the surface. But, it was much easier to denude the surface land and just pluck the coal out of the ground, much like digging potatoes from a farmer's plot.

When I viewed the strip mine, I saw a certain beauty to it. What was uncovered was natural rock formations and other organic material which, to me, manifested their own unique beauty and texture which was not unpleasant to my eye. The red from the clay soil, the black from the coal remnants and the gray and brown of the rocks formed an abstraction of the fruits of hard and useful labor, rather than an abomination or destruction of the natural habitat. That was the picture I saw anyway.

Looking out to the East, I could see the cow field which adjoined the local children's shelter. We played touch football in that field when we had a big neighborhood game because it was one of only a few areas in the immediate vicinity which was both flat and devoid of trees. The only real problem with playing in the field was the cow excrement which was randomly and unceremoniously dropped by the field's occupants, even during the games. I still remember the touchdown I scored by catching a long pass and then adroitly tip toeing around a cow pile which we had designated as one of the end zone lines. Of course, that's the way I remember it. My fellow players later told me that they had a different memory of my athletic prowess on that play. They had the temerity to speak of the smell emanating from one of my shoes which had inadvertently stomped into the middle of the cow pile. I don't remember it that way.

And, the characters who passed by on the road which adjoined our property...what a motley crew. The one person that I do remember was our next door neighbor. In today's vernacular, I believe that she would be described as being in the late stages of Alzheimer's or age related Dementia. Back then, she was just the neighborhood crazy. She would start walking early in the morning up and down a hundred yard strip of the road while continually mumbling obscenities and nonsensical verbiage which I felt wise not to completely comprehend. I admired her persistence and dedication to her endless ritual. For me, it was like watching an old cartoon in continuous play mode. We felt no pity for her. She wasn't in pain. She was doing what she wanted to do. She wasn't hurting anybody. Back in Fairmont, we had a mantra which we stuck to. We didn't mind it when people did their own thing, as long as they weren't hurting themselves or others. As long as she left us alone, we reciprocated in the same manner. She was a free bird. She didn't need to be caged.

Yes, I enjoyed watching the world flow by, sitting in that old rocking chair, sipping that oh so sweet tea that grandma made just for me.

I didn't know that I would someday miss that opportunity to sit there and talk to that old sweet woman who single handedly gave me the incentive and confidence to make it through those tenuous years between childhood fantasies and adult responsibilities.

I still miss you, Grandma Perry.