Been enjoying the cool breezes on the porch this morning. The sky is azure blue and the clouds, here and there, are white and fluffy. The sun is bright and clear giving her warmth to the vegetables and flowers in my yard. The birds are happily visiting the feeders and bird baths.

Porches are wonderful places to sit and ponder and spend moments of meditation with God. When the cool breeze blows and the earth is silent, the wind chimes are my organ music and this porch my church. The birds are singing their praises for the beautiful day and the squirrels racing back and forth across the street let me know God has a sense of humor.

Every house on my street has a porch and I’ve got memories with almost all of them. My daddy’s brother built the house next door and they had a wrought iron fence around their small brick porch. The fence had a little gate and I could stand on the gate and get a short ride as it shut. I loved to lock our yard dog on their porch, too. My baby brother and I played there all the time. Next to them lived a family with four children and when everyone was up and grown and gone, and my mother gone, their mother became an early morning cherished friend. We’d sit on the porch and drink coffee and eat Cheerios and talk. She gave wonderful Christian advice and I always felt I had visited an angel when I left her porch. She always inspired me with her wisdom. Chief always knew where to find me if he got up late and I wasn’t sitting on my porch swing.

Advice from the porch — Enjoy every season. Hear the birds sing. Take in the view. Listen to the rainy days. Feel the breeze. See every sunrise. Smile at sunset. — Unknown

Two houses down from her house on a tiny front porch lived a viscous nasty white chihuahua. He always prissed up the street during our badminton games and scared us. I threw a big ice cube at him once and hit him right between the eyes. We never saw him again. Stew said I sent him to doggy heaven with that ice cube. I hope not!

I spent many happy afternoons on the porch across the street with my friend who lived there. The porch is huge and the swing grand. Nothing impeded the swing’s flight and my friend and I could swing as high as the sky off the edge of the porch and back. And then we’d play “Let the Cat Die,” where you stick your legs straight out and let the swing stop on its own as the cat dies. Spent many happy nights there, too, stepping on a beautiful little stool to get up in the high bed.

Next to their house was a tall house with a small slender side porch and a great driveway to ride bikes and skate down. The older couple who lived there love to sit outside and watch us play. Lots of times I’d get off my bike, or unicycle, or stilts, or skates and visit with them on the porch. He told me once how much he enjoyed hearing my children outside playing when they were big enough to ride their bikes down his driveway. They were a sweet couple. I cooked them dinner one night and he wrote me a thank you note in a beautiful fountain pen script.

Across the street from this house is a white house with porch bannisters where a clowder of cats would perch and watch us walk home from school every afternoon. I think every child has a scary house in their neighborhood and this was mine. In my mind those cats hissed every time we walked by. My cousin Blake Shaffer and I threw double handfuls of marbles on their tin roof one afternoon and watched, hidden in the bamboo forest, as they ran out of the house to see what all the commotion was. I’m ashamed now but we sure did laugh! Daddy would have tanned our hides if he knew we did that.

To the left of that house was the house where the Pekingese dog lived. He got his teeth brushed each day. I loved to sit outside on the screened in porch with the older couple. We’d put our feet up on the round black metal fan on the porch floor and I’d always ask if the dog had brushed his teeth yet. Only memories from the house next door to theirs was when Rosie came home and told me she and Wesley had beer with their snacks. She meant root beer, thank goodness! I had to straighten that sentence out since she told my mother-in-law she liked beer.

Left, down the street and on the right, I spent many happy afternoon on the sleeping porch of this home. They had no children but entertained their nieces and nephews and me all summer long. We played board games and cards and sometimes went to their farm for a swim in their pool in a big hay field. One of us always had to be on snake patrol. Their farm house had a huge screened-in porch and we’d enjoy our meals there sitting around a big picnic table.

Next door to this house is a cream colored brick home that Chief always called the steam boat Gothic house. My mother’s double first cousin lived there and my grandmother and my mother and I spent many happy afternoons on that large screened-in porch talking and listening to each other’s family stories. We’d walk up the street for our visits.

Porches are no longer enjoyed with central air conditioning keeping homes cool. I only have air conditioning in the bedrooms here in my ancestral home. I love the porch and you’ll find me there most days till the sun touches my toes in the porch swing and I come inside to get away from the heat.

“Sometimes, all you need is a good swing and a little bit of sunshine.” — Unknown