Porch wallerin’
July 15, 2008 by ramzeelandIt’s been a while since I’ve posted so here goes: Last night was spent wallerin’ the porch of my fishing buddy, Gene Wilson. As stated before, we’ve been friends for 25-nearly 30 years now.
We both believe in preserving or continuing old county ways of life. That’s where the porch wallerin’ came in. Folks don’t do it too much anymore. A wise old owl, Clyde Keller (now deceased), once told me that he believed that folks weren’t too neighborly due to the way homes have been built for the past 50 years or so. Older, bungalow-style homes had rather large inviting porches on the FRONT of the house. Now we sometimes have decks on the BACK of the house.
Those inviting porches were perfect for spending the last few moments of daylight together with a neighbor, discussing the current goings-on of the neighborhood. So & so’s been sick and maybe we need to plow through their garden to keep the weeds out until they mend. Old so & so went up on John’s River and caught a mess of catfish the other night, maybe we need to catch a bunch of grampers and catch us a mess for ourselves.
Last night was spent with our sons who are about 1.5 years apart and have been buds since they were very young. Me & Gene discussed his quirky neighbors, laughing out loud at their antics, as told by Gene. Not in a mocking, down grading tone, but a purely comical way, celebrating his quirky neighbors, whom he gets along with just fine. During this time, the boys just sat and listened to us old codgers, laughing with us.
We heard a bob white (or quail) just before dark. Luke (Gene’s boy) commented that he couldn’t remember when he last heard one, and he’s always out camping or climbing rocks in the wild parts of our world. Gene has an English neighbor and he demonstrated this neighbor’s way of calling his dogs in for their medicines. That English accent was too much to take and me and Gene concurred that we need to help him adjust his way of talking with a proper, backwood North Carolina accent.
Then we talked of another neighbor who will eat anything he can kill, be it deer, rabbit, squirrel or possibly even a bear (if given the opportunity). Gene also told of him target practicing with this same neighbor, near the road that runs in front of said neighbor’s house. He listens for cars/trucks/vehicles, but has a hard time hearing a bicycle. Dangerous.
We spoke of the creeks we are so fond of for swimming and cooling off in during the summer. We have to get another session in before Luke has to return to college.
Just as we were about to leave, then Aaron (my son) and Luke began talking. Luke is now working at the same ink factory that Aaron worked at for about 2 years. They’ve done some of the same jobs and run into some of the same folks at work. They both spoke of the good and the bad, sharing thoughts as adults. We watched them shoot snakes with BB guns and eat sunflower seeds in the back seat of our old car as kids. Gene has video of these young men as children, proging around with their idiot fathers with metal detectors and video cameras in tow. We bought them bubblegum cigars as me and Gene smoked rum crooks (the real thing). We’ve shared dogs, both the raising and burying of them.
Porch wallerin’. Just visiting. Sharing a story or just catching up and comparing recent beach trips.
The good parts of life among friends.