There is a spot on Sugar Ridge, the place where I grew up and live now, that once was a place of comfort, laughter, music, philosophy, physics, Bible study, mechanics, hotrods, and life in general. All that remains of this place of profound debate and hospitality is a concrete slab with part of the brick walls that enclosed it.
For year it was a dirt floor with two boards that held
the roof of what would become our front porch.
We lived a shack that most folks would have not used for a barn. Built the old timey way, the shack stood atop
some big rocks used to hold the floor off the ground. Dad started building it around 1956.
We moved to Illinois from Alabama in 1957 for dad to find work. He worked for Beloit Iron Works and we, mom,
dad, my sister, and I, had a prosperous and productive life until mama tired of
ways of Yankee land and we, now with a newborn, returned to the poverty of the
south. We moved back into the unfinished
house with primitive and limited things to live in the spring of 1960. That fall the last of the Hopper children
arrived.
Ten years later we would install two more rooms and an
indoor toilet and bathtub. I helped dad
set the commode and tub. I had tried out
for a football scholarship that morning.
My dad and two brothers poured the concrete for the porch slab.
It was the place where my dad, brothers, and I spent
most of the time. We thought we were
somebody because we had two swings on the porch. One swing faced the west, the other the
east. It was from the swings that we discussed
life. On the swing facing west, we hung
two big springs from a truck’s hood giving the swing an energy of its own. It was fun to watch our victims sit in the
swing and get a quick lesson in physics.
A couple of laws were in play.
One was what goes down must come back up. It was sorta fun to watch the theory of what
goes up must come down, but when the victim went down, legs went up, eyes
opened wide and squills got high. When
the swing bottomed it came up, legs went down, eyes shut tight, and the yell
was loud. What followed was a series of
ups and downs and smiles on the hopper men folks.
The swings were not attached according to any safety
regulations. Dad placed two oak 4X4’s
over the rafters and wired the swing chain around the 4X4’s. Worked fine until one morning my middle
brother and I had called a truce on our fighting and were sitting together looking
at the newest of Hot Rod Magazine which came in the morning mail. Mamm had threatened to kill us several times
that morning for our fighting but most of the time they were idle threats.
Sudden in Biblical judgment speed, one of the oak 4X4’s
fell from the heavens, naw the porch rafter, and hit me across my
shoulder. Taller than my little brother,
the board hit me first and we were sitting on the floor. My brother got the worse though. Where the chain wrapped around the 4X4, hit
him in the head and blood was flying everywhere. He was crying as I dug us from the rubble.
With the swift judgement of the Arch Angel Michael,
momma come flying out the front door with a rod of judgment and began to whup
me screaming, “I told you to leave your brother alone.” My brother crying, “Momma, Bobby didn’t do
anything.” Momma had blind justice and
kept whuppin.’ I kept digging us out.
Many great and wonderful things happened on those swings.
I’d love sit facing mom and dad and discuss life again. Sunday afternoons the swigs and bannisters
became a stage to sing. It was the place
to share heartaches, bad news, good news, to hug, to kiss, and reflect on life.
Dad had a brain tumor, and he would swing after having
radiation treatments. One day my
daughter Angel had a marker and was sitting in the swing with dad playing
tic-tac-do on his bad head. The Chemo
people had drawn a diagram for treatment and dad was allowing his only granddaughter
to play.
Oh! The memories of a two-swing porch.
