"Home Sweet Home"

"Be it ever so humble...There's no place like home."

Singers sing about it, poets write about it, old people reminisce about it, and children grow more attached to it than they know.

"Home" is certainly far more than four walls, a floor and a roof. But, the "old home place" holds a spot of great sentimentality and fondness in many human hearts.

According to current U.S. Census Bureau research, the average American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. That .7 move must a real trick, don't you think? Those who stay longest in their residences are the fifty and older crowd.

Makes sense.

This writer and his extended family have a long history of bedding down. The old family homeplace in Riverside that was built in 1917, was just torn down in 2010. Ninety-three years - not a bad legacy for a house and community that was home to so many of our family through its generations.

Though not everyone shares this philosophy, there just seems to be something powerful about a family's homeplace, and the irreplaceable memories and nostalgia connected with it.

In days gone by, the family home was much more a place built for living, and much less a palace built for show. Parents reared large numbers of children in just two bedrooms and a bath. Many did so without the bath.

Scores of the old houses in Riverside, as well as in other farming communities in Fulton, Cobb, and various other counties, were frame structures. They had plaster walls, hardwood floors, and tiny rooms. Most were built without the aid of blueprint, architect, or county inspector.

And, few, if any, featured the "luxury" of inside plumbing.

When indoor bathrooms did come into vogue, they were small, and equipped with only one sink, a claw-footed bathtub, and a lavatory. The bathroom that this writer grew up in was so small, when one sat on the toilet, his/her knees touched the side of the bathtub.

Instead of wall-to-wall mirrors in bathrooms of the past, there was a single, small, mirror that doubled as the medicine cabinet door. No one spent an eternity in the bathroom soaking in a hot tub, or hours in front of a bank of lights, "stylin'."

It was a process of, "get-in and get-out." There were usually eight or nine other people waiting their turn.

Before water heaters and hot baths or showers, there was the #2 washtub on the back porch on Saturday night just after sundown. The water was heated over an open fire on or the coal/wood stove, and the subject got only one pass of the hot water being poured over his/her soapy body. There were no thirty minute sessions spent daydreaming under a pulsating shower-head.

Moving from the bath to the kitchen, in homes of yesteryear, there were no granite counter tops, no microwave or convection ovens, no fancy islands or built-in dishwashers, and no Lazy-Susan cabinetry, or recessed lighting. There was one sink, and it was usually a white porcelain model with a slanted drain area where the water funneled back into the sink. The cabinets were made out of plain wood. They were small, and equipped with modest, functional hardware.

Going even farther back, this writer's extended family told of kitchens with well pumps at the sink, or none at all. Stoves were not powered by a Southern Company nuclear plant, but by either chunks of coal or large slabs of cord wood. Refrigerators were not fancy, stainless steel, designer creations with crushed ice machines on the front door. But rather, they literally were "ice-boxes." They kept things cold for no longer than it took the large block of ice in the unit's upper chamber to melt away.

There were no middle-class houses in this writer's day with more than 1,000 square feet in the floor plan. There were no formal dining rooms, sunrooms, television or theater rooms, spas, workout rooms, walk-in closets, or libraries. Parlors were common in houses built at the turn of the twentieth century, but they were much smaller than the average living room is today.

The one feature of houses from past times that was so very special was the front porch. It was a meeting place, a resting place, a vantage point, a cooling off place on sweltering summer nights, and the perfect stage for a budding romance. Like Andy, Barney and Aunt Bea, folks sat on their front porches after the evening meal, on Sunday afternoons, when company came, and when they courted. Front porch rocking chairs, swings, and hammocks made relaxing or reclining all the more pleasureable. And, also made the front porch one of the favorite areas of the old homeplace.

During the youth of this writer's father, the Riverside community of Northwest Atlanta was filled with small farm houses. These "shotgun" homes did not have lots of amenities, especially in comparison with today's palatial mansions. But, they did have ample front porches.

This architectural touch reflected the slower, friendlier, more neighborly pace of that day and time. It was not until a few generations later that builders and architects stopped putting front porches on houses.  The home building fad came to include sun decks on the back side of the house - so we could all hide from one another and have our "privacy." Thankfully, the trend of designing homes with front porches seems to have come back around in more recent times.

While the front porch was a daily blessing, there was one special time every weekend when they took on an added bliss.

Every Saturday night during the Spring, Summer and early Fall, there would be a community gathering in Riverside. This gathering rotated to some degree in regard to the place, but it would always be hosted at somebody's home. The host family would drag their console radio up to the front window of the house just before 7:00 PM.

The crowd would have already gathered by that time.

Families from all over the community brought blankets, food, pitchers of iced tea, and an occasional pillow or two. They would pick a spot on the host family's front porch, or in the front yard. The guests would spread out, picnic style, and await the sound of the booming voice of the WSM AM-650 Radio announcer.

"Live from Nashville, Tennessee, and brought to you by Martha White Flour, it's time for the Grand Old Opry."

For the entire two-hour broadcast of the Opry, folks would sit and listen intently to the music. Some would clap or sing along, and some would tap their foot. The more adventuresome ones would get up and buck dance, and others would just sit and rock back and forth as if they were sitting on their own front porches. When the WSM broadcast of the Opry signed off, folks didn't always go home right away. Many stayed around until after 10:00 o'clock visiting, talking, and enjoying an unhurried evening with their friends and neighbors.

In a day and time when folks are losing their homes in record numbers due to foreclosure, perhaps it is good to remember a simpler time. An era when families didn't need 4,000 square feet and a pool in order to be happy. An era when the family home was much more than a place to merely shower and change clothes before rushing off to the next appointment or form of amusement.

Perhaps what our country needs is a return to the simple contentment of a time of living in communities rather than subdivisions. Of having neighbors that we know and share our lives with, rather than next-door strangers that are seen only if both happen to go the mailbox at the same time. And, of living life at a slower pace.

There is, after all, no place like home.

May the Good Lord help us each to realize this, and to plan for that greatest "Home Place" of all.

"Well I'll be John Brown"

- David Decker
  February 21, 2011