A Piedmont Porchlight Story

People accuse old men of bein’ nosy.

I reckon that’s because they don’t know any better. You see an old fellow sittin’ on a porch, or in one of those metal chairs outside the Coffee Cup, watchin’ every pickup and every car that rolls by, and it’s easy to think he’s keepin’ score of everybody else’s business.

Truth is, he’s probably keepin’ company with his own memories. Take me, for instance.

Every morning after breakfast, I find myself sittin’ on the porch with a cup of coffee, facin’ the street. Cars come and go. Folks wave. Somebody honks. Teenagers drive by with music turned up loud enough to rattle the courthouse windows.

I’m not watchin’ traffic. I’m watchin’ time.

That old red Ford reminds me of the truck my daddy drove until the floorboards looked more like lace than steel.

That faded Chevrolet takes me back to Saturday nights when every boy in Piedmont thought a clean car and a full tank of gas made him irresistible.

A motorcycle growls past, and for just a second, I can smell the leather jackets and Brylcreem of the boys who came home from Korea with a little more gray in their eyes than in their hair.

Every vehicle carries somebody with it. Sometimes they’re still alive. Sometimes they ain’t.

An old station wagon rolls by, and I can almost see Mrs. Harlan loadin’ enough fried chicken and potato salad to feed two church homecomings and a funeral besides.

A white church van reminds me of vacation Bible school, where children ran around with red Kool-Aid mustaches and enough energy to light up Birmingham.

Then comes an old pickup with a hound dog ridin’ in the bed, ears flappin’ in the wind, happier than a preacher at a potluck. That one makes me think of Earl. Lord, Earl loved a hound dog almost as much as he loved complainin’.

Funny what sticks with you. Not the important things. The ordinary ones. The sound of a screen door slammin’. Your mama hollerin’ that supper’s ready. The smell of fresh-cut hay driftin’ through an open truck window.

The way your best friend’s daddy always drove with one elbow hangin’ out the window like the whole road belonged to him. Those are the things that come ridin’ back.

Young folks think memory works like a photo album. Nice and orderly. Open a page… See a picture. Close the book. It ain’t like that. Memory is more like traffic. It comes when it pleases.

Sometimes one little thing passes by, and before you know it you’ve traveled fifty years without ever leavin’ your chair. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy sittin’ where I can see the street. The town keeps introducin’ me to people I’ve known all my life.

Not the folks behind the wheel. The ones ridin’ alongside ’em in my head. Every now and then, somebody’ll stop and ask what I’m lookin’ at. I usually smile and say, “Nothin’ much.”

That’s easier than explainin’ that I just spent five minutes ridin’ to Terrapin Creek in a ’49 Ford with a boy who’s been gone forty years. Or that a blue Buick reminded me of my first funeral at Magnolia Mortuary.

Or that the sight of a little girl in the back seat, wavin’ at strangers, brought back my sister when she still believed everybody in Piedmont was family. The older I get, the less I believe we’re watchin’ the world pass by.

I think the world’s kind enough to bring pieces of our lives back around every now and then, just to remind us they happened. A familiar laugh. A certain engine. A favorite song driftin’ out of an open window. They’re little postcards from yesterday.

You don’t have to chase memories. If you’re patient, they’ll drive right past your porch.

So, if you happen to see an old man sittin’ in a rocker, facin’ the street instead of the television, don’t assume he’s bein’ nosey. Odds are, he ain’t watchin’ your car at all.

He’s watchin’ somebody he loved come home one more time.