THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, October 21, 1995             TAG: 9510200157
SECTION: DAILY BREAK              PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Column 
SOURCE: Larry Maddry 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   56 lines

PORCHES WERE A JOYOUS SPOT DURING THE SWING ERA

I CAN'T HELP smiling when I recall the open-sided porch on the house where I grew up. And the many summer hours we spent there drinking Coca-Cola in ribbed glass bottles - talking and laughing until stars freckled the night sky.

Dangling from the porch roof was a green wicker swing on a rusty chain. We called the swing ``Cranky'' because it had the disposition of an untamed horse.

Neighbors who sat down on ``Cranky'' were warned never to raise their feet more than a few inches above the tile floor, because its center of gravity was in the swing back.

But of course they forgot, as we sometimes did - providing those of us seated in the relative safety of sofas and chairs much free entertainment. Often the visitor was in midsentence when hurled backward, head over heels, sometimes with skirts flying, and dumped to the tile floor behind the swing like a sack of potatoes.

The porch was a place for family conversation long after television became popular. And the topics discussed there ranged from gossip, to books, to politics, to reminiscences, to more serious matters - those which William Faulkner described as ``the innermost longings of the human heart.'' And jokes, many jokes.

The late U.S. Senator Sam Ervin Jr. of North Carolina once told an amusing story about a front-porch-sitting family living in a shack because a scoundrel named Cahoon had foreclosed on their handsome farm home:

As her sons bad-mouthed Cahoon, Mother Lucy listened from her rocking chair. ``Remember the Lord loves him,'' she told them.

Son Hank then reminded her that the home Cahoon had stolen from them had been in the family for four generations. ``Yes, but the Lord loves him,'' Mother Lucy muttered from the rocker.

``And the $!*%! took our only cow,'' son Aaron said. ``And all the family silver!'' son Jepth reminded.

``Yes, but the Lord loves him,'' Mother Lucy replied, staring beyond them to the setting sun in the distance before adding:

``Of course, the Lord don't know him like we do.'

And families today don't know porches like we did. I suspect many go their separate ways after supper - even retire to separate computers for work. Or, sit, silently, watching television together in the ``family'' room. Rarely communicating.

There's a good country-western song made popular by Tracy Lawrence that has a nice twang to it, titled ``If the World Had a Front Porch.'' Tracy got that one right.

A porchless world is about as upside down as old Cranky. by CNB