A Piedmont Porchlight Story
I once knew a porch chair so old it ought to have drawn Social Security. It sat on my Aunt Pearl’s front porch for so many decades that the sun had bleached it to the color of old biscuits, and the wood grain rippled like the rings of a felled oak. Folks said the chair had been there since before the invention of embarrassment, and I reckon that was true because half the town had sat in it and confessed things they later regretted.
This chair didn’t simply creak. It announced every shift of weight with the sorrowful wail of a tree givin’ up on life. You could hear it halfway down the block. Newcomers thought it was a lost barn owl. Old timers knew it was the chair offerin’ commentary.
Whenever someone settled into that chair, it let out a long, judgin’ groan that said, “Now you listen here, boy, I have outlived three wars, five pastors, and an uncountable number of questionable haircuts. You best not waste my time.”
Aunt Pearl claimed the chair had a spirit of discernment. She said you could tell a liar because the chair would creak faster. I don’t doubt it, because Cousin Lonnie once tried to deny eatin’ all the banana pudding and the chair squeaked so violently it nearly bucked him off into the azalea bushes.
One summer afternoon, Deacon Whitlow from over at the Holiness Church plopped himself into the chair, sighin’ like a mule done with its day. The chair creaked, popped, groaned, and then settled into a hum so low I thought the porch itself was thinkin’ deep thoughts.
Now, the deacon was never a man who whispered. He believed the Lord could hear the most private mutterings of a man’s soul, so why whisper when you could speak loud and proud and let the neighbors overhear as well. He sat back, folded his hands across his generous belly, and said to no one in particular, “Lord, give me a sign. I need guidance on whether I should tell Edith her meatloaf is a crime against creation.”
The chair screamed like a fiddle string snappin’.
The deacon jumped so hard his hat flew off and landed in the hydrangeas.
“I hear you,” he said. “I hear you loud and clear.”
See, that was the power of that porch chair. It didn’t just support a man’s weight. It supported his conscience. Anyone who sat in it told truths they wouldn’t have dared otherwise, or lies so flimsy the chair refused to tolerate them.
When I was about sixteen, I sat in it myself, hopin’ to appear grown. I leaned back, tryin’ to look thoughtful, and said, “I’m thinkin’ about runnin’ away to Nashville to become a musician.”
The chair gave one mournful creak, then fell stone silent.
“That’s its polite way of tellin’ you no,” Aunt Pearl said without lookin’ up from her needlework.
Years passed. Storms came and went. The paint peeled. The wood warped. But the chair remained. It heard more secrets than a hairdresser and more confessions than a priest. Folks brought it their loves, their grievances, and their best small-town gossip. The chair creaked approval, groaned disagreement, and crackled warnings when needed.
When Aunt Pearl passed, the family fought harder over that chair than they did over the house. You would think it held gold under the seat. But I reckon it held somethin’ better. Memories. Stories. Echoes of laughter. Fragments of foolishness. It was an archive carved in pine.
In the end, nobody won the chair. Aunt Pearl had written its fate into her will. She ordered it to be left on the porch, never moved, never painted, never “restored” by some well-meanin’ relative with a hardware store coupon.
“It has lived long enough,” she wrote. “Let it listen in peace.”
To this day, if you walk past her old house on a humid Piedmont night, you just might hear that porch chair creak.
Some say it is the wood settlin’.
Others swear it is the chair reactin’ to some memory floatin’ out of time.
But me, I think it is the chair rememberin’ the stories it heard.
And heaven help us all if it ever decides to tell them.
New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.
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