Sitting on the porch

I am sitting in my new office on the second floor of our brand new building. I love my new office and my window. After sharing an office for almost six years in less than optimal conditions---I truly appreciate the space, cleanliness and calm. I feel like I have died and gone to office heaven!

As I look out my window, there is a house across the street from me that takes me back to Spottsville almost 50 years ago. I go back to a simpler time during summer vacations. The thing that keeps prodding that memory is a front porch the entire width of the house with two doors going in to the front of the house. Most especially the freshly dust mopped battleship grey painted wood floor. My grandmother mopped the porch on a regular basis and dust mopped it daily. There is one rug as you step onto the porch and another that leads all the way to the door. NO-ONE enters with their shoes on. The back porch on my grandmother's house was the same as the front, only higher from the ground and just as clean. The children had to be watched carefully to keep us from falling off. Maybe that was just me because of my clumbsiness.

You could sit on the front porch and people would walk down the road and stop---just to talk a spell. The back porch was used to do the laundry with a wringer washer. White clothes were washed first, then light colored, then darker colors and finaly dirtiest work clothes. My grandmother used pant stretchers to keep from ironing pants. They were a pretty cool invention. I don't think she liked ironing any better than I do. We played on the porches. We talked and dreamed on the porches. Nothing was better on a late summer day than swinging on the porch.

There is not a lot of activity on the porch I look at daily. People come and go but don't sit there much. The lady wears "house dresses" that are belted above her belly like my grandmother. Ladies just didn't wear pants much back in my grandmother's day and evidently she like many her age just never felt right in them.

Some day I am going to go visit the lady across the street---clean my shoes off really good ---
and sit for a while---think about the days gone by. Yes someday.....

I Am at The Point

I just received an e-mail today from my great Aunt Ruby Lee with the following thought. It struck me that this is what age and perspective gives you. The older you are---the more true this becomes.

"There comes a point in your life when you realize:
Who matters.....
Who never did......
Who won't anymore......
And who always will.
So don't worry about people from your past, there is a reason they didn't make it to your future."

It would be wonderful if young people could realize this and not waste as much time on people who will prove to be insignificant in their future. Maybe that lesson is one that we need to learn in order to appreciate our truly good friends.

True friendship is always a give and take. You know the kind of people who call and you know they want something from you and you call them and they never reciprocate. There are also the friends that call just to check on you and if you don't hear from them it is your turns to call to touch base. Friends that you can talk to every six months and pick up where you left off are always nice.

Many friends fill a need at any given time--such as the parents you talk to at your children's school--classmates---work colleagues---organizational friends---all your life friends---talk to you if I see you out but would never call friends---and the "bestest kind of friends"---the ones that will be there for you whenever, wherever and whatever.

I just got home from a trip and am glad to see all of the friendly faces in my life.