Blount and Beyond Online Magazine - Magazine - Page 118
Front Porch Sittin’ and Singing By Linda Kay Baker
The next time you drive down a country road look for houses with front porches. Not as many today as there
was when I was growing up. Even my own front porch is not big enough to entertain neighbors and friends
like we did when I was a child.
Take note of the houses with the wide front porches with swings, benches, and chairs scattered around.
Those houses seem to be calling you to come on in and sit a spell.
While travelling down the winding roads you might get the feeling that time is standing still. Here in the south
the front porch is one of the reasons we take life a little slower. These wide front porches might remind you of
a time when we were on our own front porch listening to stories and telling tall tales.
The slow pace of living is why many of us can remember getting electricity, our family9s first television,
running water in our house, our first telephone, an eight-party line, or any of the other luxuries that came
into our homes in the 1950s and on. We lived so far back in the hills that we were the last to get all these
things. I truly believe one reason we were last in getting so many modern things is because of where we
lived. Our way of life led to many nights sittin9 on the porch talking and singing. A galvanized water bucket
was nearby with cold water from a well or spring. A dipper hung on the handle of the bucket, and everyone
drank from the same dipper.
A question we might ask is