My Grandmother Hammond’s back porch was cool and smelled of old flowers and long-ago summers and ripe fruit. I could usually find a box of peppermint sticks in there somewhere. The soft kind.
There were windows all around and a sink and cabinets and cupboards and an enamel-painted metal table in the middle: white enamel with a red edge and Mason jars and lids and another door that led into the kitchen.
From out the windows I could see the kitchen garden and the garden wall and pastures beyond and the well house with the big dinner bell and the drive curving down between white fences to Highway 29.
My grandparents on both sides are all gone now, as are my Mom and Dad. The house and farm may or may not still be there. I don’t know. I haven’t been back in years.
But I still remember the house and the fields and the barns and the cabin my mother and sister and brother and I stayed in one summer.
And the back porch. It seemed the model for all back porches.
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Remember Daddy Hammond sitting in that old wicker rocking chair drinking coffee from a china cup (small) only half full because the coffee got cold fast in those old cups. He didn’t use a saucer either. He also would give us change from his pockets when we would leave–I thought he was so rich because his pockets would be full of change.
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