Poppy's Back Porch

Walk with me now a few steps from Poppy’s front porch, through his house. Why? I guess because I’ve been very nostalgic lately. One thing I’ve been thinking about is how clearly I can recall certain sounds in my memory; that’s not a new realization. I can see things “in my mind’s eye” from years ago, but the sounds come to mind more clearly for some reason. Better than my ability to explain here in writing.

Walk through the door into the living room. Wait, there I am in the chair by the south window, Poppy is sitting in his chair by the entrance to the kitchen, and my dad is sitting across from me in the chair in front of the built in bookcase. All three of us are reading, and my dad and Poppy are smoking their pipes. I hear the clink of dishes as mom washes them in the kitchen sink. It’s a July evening, just getting dark and still hot. The tree frogs and whippoorwills are starting to sing, but the only other sound from inside the house is the hum of the oscillating fan. Not a word has been spoken for a while. In fact, I remember that at the time I noticed the quiet, and the peace that came from being with family, in a place I loved, and at an age when I had few worries.

Now if we continue through the kitchen we’ll come to Poppy’s back porch, an interesting place in it’s own right. As for sounds, sometimes you’d hear the tinkle of glass wind chimes near the screen windows. When the water pressure got low, you’d hear a click as the motor for the well pump came on in the pump house, just to the north. But what I remember most was the distinctive rattle of the big, old doorknob and lock on the back door, as someone came in from outside, or went out. Impossible to describe in words, but I’ll never forget it.

Happy 18th of July!

Poppy was born July 18, 1902; if he were still here with us he’d be 106 today. Almost every year we would drive to his place in Taney County to celebrate his birthday. Mike and his family would come over from Branson, there would be good food, and sometimes the cousins and I would act out little plays for Poppy and the other adults in the audience. These were usually spoofs of popular TV shows or commercials.

And usually there would be fireworks. One year when I was young, I didn’t get all my fireworks shot off on the fourth…I think we were rained out. It was explained to me that I could take what I had left over to the farm, and since Poppy lived out in the country we could shoot the works for his birthday.

Then of course one year we didn’t get them all fired on the 18th either. I had brought them in a red cardboard box, with a label I’d made with FIREWORKS written in black Magic Marker. Poppy allowed me to keep the fireworks until the next year; he put the box on a shelf high on the east wall of his back porch. I’m actually kind of amazed that he let me keep the fireworks there when I think back on it. That tradition carried on a few years. I would bring more fireworks down, and we’d shoot both new and old fireworks. Some of them were probably five years old. I remember saying that once, and someone commenting that they probably wouldn’t light. But the old ones worked great…sometimes better than the new ones I’d bought.

Then there was the year that Uncle Buddy and I decided we’d try to make our own fireworks. I had a book, “Magic With Chemistry”, that had a few formulas. So, I brought down my chemistry set, and Buddy had his. Fortunately for us both – for our safety - the authors of the book wisely left out a key step in the process, and everything we made fizzled.

One year though we did try something interesting. I had figured out that I could tape two or three bottle rockets together and carefully twist their fuses together. I made a few of those clustered bottle rockets, which worked pretty well. That got Buddy to thinking. He had a balsa glider he was willing to sacrifice for the cause, the idea being to break the sticks off the bottle rockets and tape them to the wings as jet engines. I don’t recall how many bottle rockets we used, but it was the same number on each wing. Buddy set up a ramp or wood or plywood, at an angle away from our audience. When the time was right, the fuses were lit. The little glider didn’t stay airborn for long, but it did pretty good with a nice arcing flight. Some of the bottle rocket “jet engines” were the kind with a report, so that modified glider’s flight was it’s last.

Well, I wouldn’t do that today, and I don’t recommend it. Fireworks pose enough risk without doing any modifications to them, even something as slight as taping them to a balsa glider.