The Front Porch by Scott C. Endsley (carter reed txt) 📕

were now old hat. With me, folk music was where it was at. I got out a cassette tape of my new hero, Bob Dylan, and played her one of his songs. Before it was finished playing, she scoffed, “Sounds like an old man! Why don’t you play one of your songs?”

I him-hawed around ‘til I thought of one worth singing, then began plucking away at the guitar, and closed my eyes as the story poured out of my soul. It was quite incomprehensible, because at the time I tried to impress people with my multi-syllable words. Mom would often say, “Ooh, that gave me goose bumps...but, what does it mean?”

Before I was finished singing, Grandpa walked in the front door and sat down to listen, taking off his hat and fiddling with it. The song came to a dramatic end and Grandpa slapped his knee, “Even better than the Beatles!!!” Just as he spoke there was a distant clap of thunder. Grandma ejected from her rocking chair to unplug the television.

<*><*><*>
Just finishing my first semester of college and still living with Mom and Dad, I was beginning to take seriously the notion of being a professional songwriter. After getting kicked out of at least a dozen bands, I went at it alone. I decided I didn’t really like to perform much, so I just concentrated on writing. School took a back seat; instead of concentrating on my homework, I was usually between a pair of headphones studying the works of other great authors.

I recall one night listening to Judy Collins, not paying attention until the song “My Grandfather’s House” started playing. It took me back to the farm... I thought about my best friend.

It wasn’t too long after that, that I had a dream that seemed the most vivid I ever dreamed: I was walking in a field of tall grass, that was swaying gently back and forth in the wind. Then I turned and saw my grandfather walking in my direction with a fishing pole in hand. He looked up at me as I commented, “Grandpa, you never go fishing. You’re always too busy!”

He didn’t stop to talk with me, he just looked back as he passed and said, “Well, Scotty, I’ve got all the time I need now to enjoy myself.”

He kept walking away as the dream faded and I awoke. I had a strange feeling about it for days, until I finally forgot about it.


It was a Saturday morning. Mom had been up most of the night, packing. I woke up feeling groggy from not having much sleep the night before. I was excited about the trip...We hadn’t been to the farm in at least a year. I got up and got myself something to eat. On the refrigerator was a note from Dad letting Mom know that he had gone to the mall. The phone rang.....I waited for Mom to answer, but realized she was outside in the garden, so I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Yes, is this the Endsley house?” an elderly lady inquired. “I’m very sorry to inform you of this, but, your father just passed away.”

I nearly dropped the phone, picturing my old man laying all sprawled out on the floor of some department store. Then I realized the call was long distance, and the caller had mistaken me for my father. Mom came in from outside and sat on the couch. She didn’t seem too surprised when I hung up and informed her Grandpa had died of a heart attack.

I went to my room and sat on the bed, resting my head on the wall. I was more stunned then saddened. It just seemed too strange of a coincidence that he died the day before I’d finally get to see him again. Dad’s car pulled into the driveway just as I heard the kitchen door creak open. I went over to the window as Mom approached my father. They stood there talking for awhile, then Dad sat down on an old tree stump and sat straight up, nervously playing with a toothpick in his mouth. I knew my father a lot better than he thought I did....He probably cleared his throat and tried to hold back the tears.

<*><*><*>
The farm was quiet, though just about every relative I ever knew, and then some, were either watching TV, looking in the refrigerator, or out tending the chickens and farm animals. I was all to myself that day. I walked around the house just remembering things. On the kitchen table sat some wildflowers that were still fresh from when Grandpa picked them for Grandma the morning before.

I walked into the wash room and found Grandpa’s twenty-two rifle hanging on the wall. Right below it hung his old bullhorn. I remembered how excited I was, as a lad, blowing that thing and hearing it echo off the surrounding mountains, as dogs would bark and howl. I can also remember Mr. Cosper, verbatim, echoing off those very same mountains his lack of appreciation of my newfound musical abilities, especially at one o’clock in the morning!

We all stayed up that night as the older folks made funeral plans and were trying to write an obituary for the paper. “Us younger folks” were laughing among ourselves, remembering some of the silly antics he would often do to amuse us. Everyone finally turned in somewhere after midnight. Laying there in bed, I noticed a strange silence--a particular absence that brought into my mind a funny story:

When my brother and I were very young we shared the same room. He had the top bunk bed and I had the bottom bunk. One evening, my grandparents surprised my parents by driving in, in the middle of the night. I was alseep and didn’t know that my parents woke my brother up and asked him to sleep on the couch, so Grandpa could sleep in his bed, and Grandma had the small bed in the guest room. I woke up hours later, hearing what I swore was my brother being mauled by some growling grizzly bear! I was afraid to move, but somehow found the courage to call out for help. Mom rushed to the rescue! Now, I was too young to be embarrassed, but I sure felt a lot better finding out it was just Grandpa, in the top bunk...snoring. After remembering the incident and laughing to myself, I was saddened by the quietness of the night.

I woke up very early the next morning while everyone else was still sleeping, and went out the front door and sat in Grandpa’s chair. The same chair he’d sit in and chew on a cigarette and think. The same chair he’d sit in and play his fiddle, while everyone else tapped their feet and listened. The same chair from which he’d tell me his tall tales to my heart’s delight. But now, it was the same chair he died in. I sat there trying to understand the paradox of how someone so alive in me could be dead. Haunted by his absence more than I could ever be by seeing or feeling his ghost, I looked at the sun rising over the pasture and realized I’d never see him again....in this lifetime, anyway.


<*><*><*>
“Aaron, get in here and pick up these toys!” I called out to my son as I looked out the bay window to make sure my daughter Sarah wasn’t playing in the dog’s water.

“If you don’t get in here and pick up these toys at the count of five, we’ll have to call the fire department to put out your rear end!!!”

I finally got a reaction somewhere around number three. He drew a heavy sigh, slapped his arms to his sides and shook his head, then began to clean up his mess. I got upset with his attitude, but my wife suggested he was just a normal five year old. Her coming to his defense reminded me a lot of my mother defending me when I was young.

“Oh, what’s today’s date?” I demanded excitedly.

But before she could answer, I realized it was the 24th, and my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. I rushed to the phone and stopped for a moment, trying to remember the Area Code in Arkansas.

Mom answered the phone. She began telling me how hot the Ozarks had been lately, and like always, she asked how my health was. We talked for a little longer, then Dad came in from the garden, and Mom handed him the phone. Before I could ask him how his farm business was going he began probing into my well being, but, I didn’t mind... we were friends now. As we talked, my son Aaron tried to grab the phone from me. Finally, I gave in. His eyes lit up as he took the phone from my hand.

“Hey, Grandpa, guess what?......I gotta joke for ya!”

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Publication Date: 12-04-2009

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