Porch and Garden People

I was driving home the other night, the girls had already been put to bed and I had to make a run to Wally World for something, no doubt caffeine, that just couldn’t be lived without till morning.  I drove along St. Rose Road and for once let the radio settle on a country station.  It must have been an ode to a water drenched summer evening for in the short drive they seemed to play every on the water, water trailer park, sail away into the sun song ever made.  By the third song in I began to wonder if there might somehow be another set of singers that sang a different summer tune.

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I’m not much a water person, I’ll play in the pool with the girls on occasion and I’ve dodged my share of water hose sprays but for the most part my bare toes end up dangling from a porch swing or with crunchy sun burned grass under them.  As I heard all the songs from those that ride the down the beach on a motorcycle, those that take their truck down to the lake I wanted to know where the songs from the porch and garden people were?

Porch people.  Garden people.  You know us; we’re the ones who spend summer with a book out on the back deck, watching the sunset from the steps still warm from the heat of the day, or no further than our own back yard where we’ll toil until dark wandering the rows of tomatoes and pole beans.  

A porch is a big thing for me.  My husband will tell you that our porch is one of the main reasons I wanted to buy our house.  A big yard and garden space was his one prerequisite.  We got both.  

I think it’s a throwback to my childhood.  One of my only real memories of spending time alone with my great grandparents, Nannie and Big Daddy, was of me sandwiched between them on an old metal glider.  I actually have that same glider today.  They were porch people too.  They sat in the late afternoon on their front porch that was flanked by two concrete swans filled with geraniums and a miniature Ferris wheel planter of African violets pushed into the corner by the front door.  They’d sit and talk, or not talk (there’s an importance in being able to absorb and not feel threatened by the silence you know) and I’d sit there as they’d glide with a gentle rhythm of that chair.  I don’t remember much about what was said but I remember the feeling it gave me.  Contentment.

It’s the same for my husband and the garden.  His own youth was spent first traipsing behind his Mawmaw with her flowers and then him eventually taking the lead until she now trails behind him.  Age flip flopping stations as it seems to so often happen.

My grandparents and parents were never ones to sit on the porch much so I’m thinking it skips a few generations.  Although my Daddy was and is still somewhat of a gardener.   While it’s possible we’re a rarity I’m sure there are many others around.

Because I was certain of this I decided we needed our own playlist of odes to a summer spent on the porch, in the back yard or with our toes dug deep to feel the cool trapped beneath the upper burned heat of a fresh dug garden.

Below you’ll find a few summer songs of the “Porch and Garden People”:

Home Grown Tomatoes by John Denver:

http://youtu.be/etuszlplwpg

This Ol’ Porch by Lyle Lovett:

http://youtu.be/Vbb3VtT3zYs

Better Together by Jack Johnson:

http://youtu.be/RfoqELZWcp8

Sacred Yard by Zoe Speaks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LV3gUqP3bA&playnext=1&list=PL51448DBA71AA7F15

My Front Porch Looking In by Lone Star

http://youtu.be/3dvKS9RO99o

Swingin’ by John Anderson:

http://youtu.be/07_rnlBezQg

Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros:

http://youtu.be/DHEOF_rcND8