Tears and Laughter: People decorate their porches because they want the time to enjoy them

There is an abandoned piano sitting on the front porch of a forgotten house in Autaugaville, but it is rare to see people sitting on porches anymore. Sometimes you see an old person parked out on the porch while a home healthcare worker changes the bed, but you seldom see anyone lounging, or reading, or daydreaming or having tea.

Driving along you can see beautifully decorated porches with hanging ferns and seasonal pillows sitting in rocking chairs waiting, but people don’t seem to enjoy porches the way they once did.      

When I was growing up in the community of Sandflat in rural Clarke County – in God’s Country – houses were just houses.

I started checking out the differences in houses young. I was one of the first to get on the school bus in the mornings and one of the last to get off. It stopped at the end of our drive at 6:25 sharp. And in the afternoons I dismounted at 3:30. At all the stops, were the houses. Just houses. Some out to themselves beneath trees, some at the edge of fields, some side-by-side in rows. Some newer than others and some with fresher paint and neater yards, but houses just the same. Bigger families had bigger houses and smaller families had smaller houses and sometimes the other way around.

The house I grew up in had a total of six rooms. This was after a room was added. The added room gave my brother and I our own rooms. We felt blessed, safe, and comfortable. Nobody complained.

We also had a front porch we used like an outdoor room most of the year.

Everybody did.

People had supper and then they went out on the porch…as long as the weather allowed. To some, the sound of silence was appealing. Others talked. A lot of times they talked about the same stuff they had talked about the day before – gardens, family, and the way things used to be. They told the same stories and laughed the same laughs. Day would fade to night. There were fireflies and heat lightning and the hoot of distant owls.

I don’t know what happened.

I guess we advanced. We evolved.

More than three network channels got sattelited in and everybody got air conditioning. After that nobody cared about going outside on the porch after supper so much anymore.  

Other things started changing too and everyone collectively seemed to have become more entitled, privileged, demanding, and high maintenance. The size of houses started to change. They begin to have more rooms, bigger rooms, with bigger and better furniture and luxury baths. They are built complete with a patio and a pool, like in Malibu. They have a deck, a two-car garage, and a front porch with planters on every step and pillows on a swing nobody ever has time to swing in because everyone also got busier.

Much busier. Busy working to pay for the bigger houses, and busy going to activities and practices for the kids, along with meetings they feel obligated to attend, blended with other commitments to friends, family, and church. There is little time left to enjoy the bigger houses.

The pretty pillows on the porch are waiting.

Amanda Walker is a contributor with AL.com The Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Alabama Gazette. Contact her at Walkerworld77@msn.com or at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.