Vignettes from an Ordinary Life

Am going to try something new for me. Am posting a short story.

PORCHES - 1945 – (07.01.09)

The porch glider swung gently. She was five, and if she sat on the edge of the glider and pushed with her bare toe on the cement floor, it rocked back and forth. Everything in the screened enclosure was cream and forest green colored, Granny Pat’s favorite outdoor colors. Its metal arms with decorative holes were green, the canvas seat and back cushions were cream with a contrasting green braid she rolled with her fingers. The glider moved smoothly because her grandfather kept the springs and moving parts well lubricated with the small burping can of Singer sewing machine oil.

It was mid-afternoon. The small Virginian town of Ashland was breathless in the July heat and humidity. The only thing that appeared awake was a cicada buzzing loudly in the black chestnut tree shading the screened porch. Everyone else was resting in various parts of the house after Sunday lunch, warm air from black fans sweeping back and forth over their snoozing, perspiring forms.

She wasn’t sleepy, just pleasantly full from a good lunch. She would have said stuffed, but for once she really wasn’t. Oops. Her grandmother would have corrected, “No dear, you are not stuffed, you had an elegant sufficiency.” Until this year, she herself had replied to the query, “Have you had enough to eat?” “Yes, ma'am, I’ve had elephant efficiency.” Puzzled, she would hear smothered giggles around the table when she answered. Finally, this summer an older child visiting from next door had heard her during a summer lunch. He’d had burst out laughing, and her aunt had taken pity and told her that she hadn’t quite got it right. She was mortified.

Now, as she sat daydreaming, her thoughts wandered to her visit to her other grandfather and grandmother a few days before. Their house on River Road in Richmond 20 miles away was always an adventure. It was huge with 16 rooms; she’d counted them on her fingers and toes with her grandfather. Pa was fun. He gave good hugs, tickled her with his stachemus (as she dubbed his mustache), and read great stories from the books in his library to her. At the moment her favorite ones centered on a little boy who lived with wolves in a faraway country called India. She would sit on Pa’s lap as he smoked his pipe and read to her before bedtime.

The only complaint she had about Pa and Nana’s house was that there was no screened porch. However, there was a fine wrap around porch encircling two thirds of the house. She and her brother had discovered a small brown bat that slept each day on the back of a shutter on one of the music room windows. Its fur looked like the softest brown velvet. When they carefully pulled the shutter forward it would untuck its head from a folded wing and a tiny eye would sleepily open to look at them. With hushed voices they would reassure it and push the shutter back into position. They hadn’t yet been able to see it take flight in the twilight, but were sure it was one of the ones circling over the cut flower garden in pursuit of insects.

Her two great grandmothers, Gaga and Amah, lived upstairs with their own porch off their rooms. The two of them got along well, although both had been reared in different parts of America with different upbringings. One was from Yonkers, New York, and the other from New Orleans, Louisiana. They enjoyed sitting together on their porch in the early morning sun, sipping cups of lemon tea and nibbling on dry arrowroot cookies. They wore fresh creamy linen skirts down to their ankles and delicate handkerchief-cotton blouses. In the late afternoon they would dress for dinner and descend the stairs for cooling drinks with the rest of the family. She would often precede them down the stairs to make sure they wouldn’t fall.

After her bath and shampoo on Saturday evening, Gaga would sit her in front of the vanity mirror and roll her fine blond hair in strips of cloth. She looked so funny to herself in the mirror. And on Sunday morning, just before they left for St. James Episcopal Church, out would come the strips and for just a moment on the hot humid morning she would have curls! She actually enjoyed going to church in Richmond. She and her wriggling brother would be safely ensconced in the family pew. As visitors, they needn’t go to Sunday school. The sermon would go on for a long time, but she was happy. It was the one place she could daydream and no one would make a comment. Sometimes she slid sideways against an adult shoulder that would shrug to encourage her to sit up straight. Her fidgety young brother would eventually be led outside. Later they all would go into the church hall for coffee and tea and crumb cake. She would be told to only eat a bit, because Sunday lunch was just ahead.

Nana always had the best meals. Like her mom, she made her own bread, and bought her butter from a dairy close by. With the help of Pa, she raised her own chickens and pheasants, and their vegetable garden and orchard were famous in the neighborhood. The house was set on a couple of acres in a neighborhood of lovely, large homes. As a result, the children who lived and visited there had many acres for fun pursuits.

Oh, dear, lunch and dinner were big issues with adults she’d discovered. Whilst lunch was being prepared, she and her brother would sit on the side steps of the porch, attempting to stay neat in their Sunday clothes. Sometimes they would be allowed to clip a few gerberas from the cut flower garden to place in a crystal vase in the dining room. Her brother would be fed separately and put down for a nap before lunch. Last year she, too, had dined separately from the adults. She started lunch and dinner with a good appetite. Nevertheless, when her plate arrived to be placed before her she could feel desire fade. It always seemed to be piled too high with sliced ham and turkey, green and yellow vegetables, potatoes and the inevitable hot biscuits sitting on their own butter plate.

Seated on two atlases and a cushion, she would look to either side of her at the adult’s plates. They appeared to be relishing the same amounts that she’d been given. She just knew she’d never get it all down. And that’s when the trouble started. She did her best – a couple of mouthfuls of this, a couple of that, a little more of this and she was full. But, not in the eyes of her the family. Long after everyone else had left the table, she would be sitting forlornly at her place listening to the children in the neighborhood playing.

Once in a while a head looked into the dinning room and sternly insisted that she finish every scrap if she wanted to go outside to play. She would sit, the food would grow colder, and her stomach would threaten to revolt. Finally, when all seemed lost Pa would come in and help her down from her seat. Obviously, he had convinced the powers that be she couldn’t eat another bite. They would walk hand in hand out the side dinning room door to the porch. She would be stalwart and not give into tears of gratefulness. He and she would sit in a couple of Adirondack chairs and gaze silently at the bees zigzagging amongst the flowering plants. Peace would return to her troubled tummy.

Now, she was back at Granny Pat’s house. Grandpa Oates had filled her plate at lunch with small servings of each course, despite protests that it was hardly enough to feed a bird from her mom. He had looked at her each time he put food on the plate to see if she was in agreement with the amount. As she sat on the glider she wondered if the two grandpas had a talk about food. Her Pa had driven her and her brother from Richmond to Ashland, and mom and dad had followed in their car. She loved the big, black roomy 1938 sedan with its blanket hangers on the back of the front seats. She had seen the two grandpas strolling under the willow tree in the back garden deep in conversation.

She had eaten Sunday lunch, every bit of it. Everyone but Grandpa Oates and Pa was amazed. She felt a little bit full, but apparently was the only one now awake. Maybe they needed to eat a little less, too. Then they would stay awake and could sit out on the porch and swing in the glider with her.

The green awnings with their scalloped edges had been lowered to provide shade to the screened porch. As she stood up, the painted concrete porch floor felt deliciously cool to her bare feet. She heard a faint squeak from the glider. Grandpa would need to use the Singer sewing machine oil can soon

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