One recent Saturday evening, Amy and I sat on our porch. The temperatures had cooled enough so that the ceiling fan provided enough circulation to keep us comfortable. We read a while, and when I took a break, the falling darkness surprised me. The time reminded me so much of earlier days of my life.
One part of Saturday evenings that I always remember is the rhythmic, repetitive song of the cicadas. They’d taken the place of birds that in the spring jabbered both night and day. The summer melodies were interrupted only by the bark of a dog or the occasional engine roar of a passing car. Trains passed constantly throughout the night, but we were too accustomed to the echoes of their horns and the zing of their wheels upon the rails to have paid any attention.
After the family came inside for the night, our ritual began. Mother had found a few minutes between washing clothes, working in the garden, and cooking meals to take a bath and fix her hair. Her head was covered in gray curls that were tightly wound and kept in place by what seemed to be hundreds of bobby pins. By evening, she’d taken her station at the ironing board where she worked through a basket of clothes. Scattered throughout the living room were pants stretchers that held jeans for Daddy and us three boys. Three pairs of boys’ shoes had been shined for the next day’s church, and clothes had been laid out.
Daddy had plopped down in his chair, a platform rocker, and hoisted his feet on the matching ottoman. My twin brother Jim sat in the floor and applied globs of Deep Heat to Daddy’s ankles that were perpetually swollen from standing on concrete floors throughout his work shifts. My older brother Dal and I found our places, and the five of us passed the time watching our favorite shows, “Perry Mason” and “Gunsmoke.”
Going to bed was a curse and a blessing. Summer nights were humid and provided only a whisper of a breeze coming through open bedroom windows. A box fan in the living room whirred as it tried to move air through the house, but the efforts were in vain. Dampness from the thick air fell on beds. The sheets held a fresh scent from having been dried on the fifty-foot, double clothes lines in the back yard, and they also were scratchy to the skin.
We’d taken our baths before bedtime but spent little time drying off with towels. That water and perspiration made pajamas stick to our skin and made beds all the more uncomfortable. Jim and I shared a room, and for too long we lay on twin beds and suffer through fits of giggles until Daddy came to the door with the final ultimatum: be quiet or face the belt. When we did lie still for just a couple of minutes, sleep that was so peaceful and deep came quickly, and we thought no more of discomfort from heat and humidity.
Oh, I appreciate air conditioning and cable television, and computers and all modern conveniences. Still, sitting on the porch after dark and looking toward the house where I grew up, I miss the people who were my world back those many years ago. A father, mother, and brother have passed. Jim is still here thankfully, and I am blessed with a wife, two children, a son-in-law, and a grandson. Folks don’t come outside much any more because we’re all spoiled by air conditioning. Locking ourselves inside sure deprives us of conjuring up memories of good times from years gone by. I hope that folks can spend some quiet time on a porch or in a chair out in the backyard so they too can recall summer Saturday nights.
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