Rev. Jim Ryan, PhD — jimryan6885@gmail.com
Community blog: https://maryofmagdala-mke.org/blog
Introduction for Passionist alums.
Many will recall the third-floor porch of the Louisville monastery. Some of us will remember it as our bedroom from mid-Spring into late fall, or, roughly, Easter to Advent, for several years, let’s say 1966-1970. The dozen of us – a different group from year to year, with a few permanent residents – found the fresh air revitalizing. In truth, the oppressive heat and humidity of those Louisville summers drove us out of our un-airconditioned monastic cells to seek respite – with Frs. Frank and Roger’s approval of course. One or two of us lasted until the first snowfall. But when Johnny Swalina came down with pneumonia while snow swirled around him (am I remembering this correctly?) all remaining sleepers were ordered off the porch. As it turned out, that porch was just the first in a long line of porches which have offered me respite and refreshment.
Appalachian porches
Porches are important in eastern Kentucky, too. This is a story of a small sample of porches that were part of my life when I lived there. Also, it’s about learning the value of porch-sitting. Soon after arriving to take up pastoral duties with the Catholic Churches of Floyd County – St. Julianna in Martin KY and St. Theodore in Prestonsburg KY – I discovered this essential activity of pastoral care, which we’ll get to later in the story. Rev. Bill Poole was the Pastor and I was to be his Associate, the first one in all his 17 years of mountain ministry. That’s not as surprising as it may sound. The Catholic population of eastern Kentucky was less than ½ of 1% of the entire population. Bill’s pastoral reach actually embraced three counties, there being no Catholic churches in either Knott or Magoffin counties.
Moving to Martin KY into the living arrangements of the “rectory” provided, let’s just say, a jolt to what usually passes for a residential environment. Air quotes are appropriate for this ramshackle house off Main Street. Its interior walls still showed the high water mark from the last flood of Beaver Creek which runs through the center of town. Those marks go a long way to explaining Bill’s respiratory issues after living way too many years in that house.
Bill promised that my living quarters, a large room on one side of the house including a closed-in porch, would be ready on day one. On my arrival, the promised space was occupied by one of the many advocacy groups that Bill had a hand in forming. This one bore the acronym KFTC which stood for Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition. To be sure, its mission was a just and laudable one, but their work space was the very space promised to be my living space. While they acted to eliminate that most nefarious of all land instruments, the broadform deed, I shared the kitchen with Bill, who lived on the other side of the house, and slept on a cot that I set up in the evenings after the KFTC’ers vacated the premises.
Bill said he would prod them along, but they seemed not to take him seriously. As generative as Bill was, he was less so on the directive front. After weeks of promises from both sides – KFTC and Bill – I decided to act. One afternoon when the justice seekers were at their desks, aka my living space, I told them they had to leave. Actually, I told them that if they were not gone by the end of the next business day which was a Friday, then on Saturday I would put their stuff out in the front yard. Eh voila! They were gone.
So, the first Appalachian porch of importance for me was the space in which I resided. I was thankful to finally settle into the large room and the closed-in porch with its scenic view of the parking lot behind the buildings that fronted on Martin’s Main Street. Home, after all, is what you make it!
KFTC went on – operating from new office space – to successfully end the ecologically disastrous broadform deed in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It meant coal companies could no longer mine right underneath a homeowner’s surface property. So, please don’t feel too sorry for them. The organization built upon that victory by expanding their landscape of issues, and in the process selected a new name for itself using its same acronym, KFTC. Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition morphed into Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
So, where was I? Yes, porches.
Bill encouraged me to get familiar with the David School in the town of David. Eventually, familiarity is what led me to marry the school’s co-founder, Sr. Jean Ford. We didn’t have that in mind at the beginning of my introduction; it was just the divine gift that came our way. When she hears folks talk about the literalness of mountain people Jean tells the story of the naming of David School. The students were given the deciding voice on a name. One of her students said, excitedly, “I know, let’s call it the David School.” Thus the town of David got its eponymous school.
The trip from Martin to David is 12 miles along a winding path that deserves a Scenic Route sign. However, in that part of the country discovering scenic routes is just a matter of turning off the highway. For example, here’s how you get from Martin to David. South of Martin turn right on to Stephens Branch Road. Follow the rise, the turns, and back down again where the road becomes Caney Fork Road which dead ends, at which make a left turn. From that point the road runs along the Left Fork of Middle Creek at Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River. Take that route and you will land in David. Who needs highway numbers when you just follow the flow – up or down – of the watercourses?
Late one morning I was on my way to David, twisting and turning, rising and falling as the roads do, going with the flow of the watercourses, driving slow enough to be able to stop in case a coal truck would come around the bend heading straight for me. (Those drivers handled their rigs with impunity where coal is King, so one must be alert.) While in that mode, I noticed ahead of me, on a rare straight stretch, an assemblage of white folding chairs smack dab in the middle of the road neatly arranged 4-5 rows deep – all facing the house at the left side of the road. A man stood just ahead of the chairs directing traffic to the right side so as not to disturb the rows. As I slowed and looked more closely at the house, I saw a coffin on the porch. That’s right, a coffin.
This vision returns to me, 46 years later, whenever I share with others that the cultural experience of a city boy who moved to the mountains in the late ‘70s was a revelation, sometimes an eye-popping one. The coffin was open and people were standing over it, I guess saying their goodbyes on that porch.
My introduction to the function and status of the front porch in eastern Kentucky made it perfectly clear to me that I was not in Detroit anymore. As with any new experience I required time to appreciate what was expected of me when invited to visit on a summer’s afternoon. When you are invited do not apply city ways and think a half-hour visit is what your host has in mind. I found out later that folks thought I was standoffish with my 20-30 minute visits. By their account that only touched the surface of what could and would be discussed – not to mention how many times the same event may be discussed.
An afternoon of porch-sitting in Floyd County in August of 1979, when the temperature was 98 degrees, the humidity 100% and not a breeze wafted in those mountain hollers – now that’s what I’m talking about. I mean, if you’re going to go up the creek from Martin to Minnie or McDowell and don’t spend the afternoon porch-siting what’s the point of going?
When the lesson finally sunk into my awareness of the expectation, then I worried that I would not have enough to say while sitting on the porch. Silly me, people who live the porch life are masters of keeping the conversation going. They have also mastered the quiet time for rocking and watching the world go by. Speak of everything and nothing; watch quietly and rock. What matters, who cares?
I hope you realize by now that the content that matters is that you are there. Affirming one another’s presence matters so much more that what is said. And you better have a liking for Sweet Tea or Mountain Dew!
Until recently I regarded eastern Kentucky porch-sitting as a cultural rubric or an artifact unto itself. Then I had a conversation with Don Timmerman after church one Sunday. He and I were comparing our histories in various places. I told him about Appalachian porches and he told me it was exactly the same in Tanzania, Africa. Don was a Salvatorian missionary when he experienced the revelation of porch-sitting. Porches are the perfect observation point for conducting anthropological studies at root; observing human creatures in all their presentations. Nothing better than when someone falls down outside your house (not too badly hurt, of course) beginning a 2-3 hour conversation about it. Don and I both agreed that our seminary training was remiss in not offering coursework in the pastoral skill of porch-sitting.
So, where are your favorite porches? Remember, sessions under 3 hours do not qualify. I can assure you the porch with the coffin had a funeral at least that long on the day I drove from Martin to David.
Richard Thomas, “From Porch to Patio.” (Published in The Palimpsest, journal of the Iowa State Historical Society, in 1975).
“When a family member was on the porch it was possible to invite the passerby to stop and come onto the porch for extended conversation. The person on the porch was very much in control of this interaction, as the porch was seen as an extension of the living quarters of the family. Often, a hedge or fence separated the porch from the street or board sidewalk, providing a physical barrier for privacy, yet low enough to permit conversation. The porch served many important social functions in addition to advertising the availability of its inhabitants. A well-shaded porch provided a cool place in the heat of the day for the women to enjoy a rest from household chores. They could exchange gossip or share problems without having to arrange a “neighborhood coffee” or a “bridge party.” The porch also provided a courting space within earshot of protective parents [for more on this important aspect, see Beth Bailey’s From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth Century America]. A boy and a girl could be close on a porch swing, yet still observed, and many a proposal of marriage was made on a porch swing. Older persons derived great pleasure from sitting on the porch, watching the world go by, or seeing the neighborhood children at play.”
