Make a Lot of Noise and Don't Go on the Porch

By Gail Johnston

The 1950s in America was a decade made for childhood. Suburbs, offering grassy yards, trees for climbing, and woods for exploring, were being built on the fringe of cities. Libraries, schools, stores, and the streetcar line to town were all a short walk away. Television, a new phenomenon with limited programming and often poor reception, was used for viewing only selected, favorite programs. A childs play still called for creativity, make-believe games, and little parental intervention.

Homes were not air-conditioned and in summer time the neighborhood at large became a childs playground with nooks, crannies to explore and forts to be built in out of the way places. In what was perceived as a safer time, children were often outside, summer and winter, playing on their own or with other neighborhood children when they were not in school. Games were usually invented and often spontaneous.

Make a Lot of Noise and Dont Go on the Porch recalls these times from the perspective of an only child growing up with a myriad of older relatives, family, and honorary family in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland.

In a household where conversation was ongoing and dinner time was an event to be anticipated, a family of many and varied personalities live out their lives sixty years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465319845

Gail Johnston

Gail Johnston was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in suburbs there in the 1950’s. The chronicle of her childhood as an only child of older parents, living with an assortment of relatives comprised her first book, “Make a Lot of Noise and Don’t Go on the Porch”. Although she worked as a social worker professionally for a number of years, writing, especially poetry has been an avocation since she was a teenager. In this second book, she combines a collection of poetry, some from a much earlier period, and essays, all focusing on the continual imprinting of past experiences on present time, and the effect of these earlier experiences on the decisions we make throughout life.

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Make a Lot of Noise

and

Don’t Go on the Porch

black.jpg

Gail Johnston

Copyright © 2008 by Gail Johnston.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Family and a

Sense of Place

High Summer,

circa 1952

Holidays

Ordinary Days

Church

Weekday Folks

Friends, Extended Family, and

Honorary Family

Postscript

History Lessons

Dedication

For my parents, aunts, uncles who created the memories

For George, who lived some of the memories with me

For Rick, who shares them with me now

With love and gratitude for the

Privilege of sharing your lives.

Prologue

Conversation was such a backdrop to the experience of growing up in my home in the fifties. There were six people in the house where I lived, parents, aunts, and uncle; and communication among them on a daily basis was a continuing event. So long had most of these people been a part of each other’s lives, often conversations begun in the morning continued again in the evening, as if there had been no lapse in time. Of course conversation provided information, a means of gauging a mood or feeling, but it was often a major source of entertainment as well. It provided them with connection to each other, reinforcement, and confirmed for each of them that their view of the world was shared. At almost any given hour of the day, there was some kind of exchange ongoing, between the adults in the home, or between me and any of the assorted relatives living in the house. The sound of conversation became a comforting sound for me as I grew up in that house; and it translated into a feeling of safety, familiarity, and a promise of continuity.

Even now, forty years after life in that house has ended, I still can recall each person’s distinctive voice. The reality of the absence of those voices, and the length of time they have been absent from my world, is still sometimes difficult to comprehend. However, it was a different time, a different energy in the world of my childhood; and I was reared for a smaller, more intimate world than the one I have come to inhabit. I cannot live the life that my aunts intended for me, but their voices have always been in my head. They resonate with the joy they usually found in the everyday, the sense of anticipation often for the smallest events—lighting the first fire in an autumn fireplace, getting together with friends at the Hot Shoppe after Sunday evening church, or even selecting the roast to be cooked for a company dinner. My aunts lived always with the sense of possibility, enjoying the present moment but having a surety that the future would hold even more interesting people, more good times, and more time to spend with each other. It has been their true legacy to me, not always realized but always sought, and even at the most difficult moments, remembered.

Midlife Requests

In Memory of My Uncle

The sirens taking you away ended my childhood.

Forever after I became the purveyor of solace,

the light on afternoons of dark memories.

I remember, at least, the memory of you.

Perhaps a turn of head, your gait, and your leaving.

Though I have tried to remember a fragrance, or your

voice,

Now after fifty autumns, when time and distance have

completed me,

I wonder at the verdict we would render each other.

Please, forsake your dreams. I am not what you imagine.

You cannot be what my memory invents.

But I would like to think that if we meet again,

In the blinking of an eye, in a cosmic moment

There would be recognition.

I would see I always had what I longed for you

to give me.

You would see that your gifts were not given in vain.

For a Grandfather in Ancient Fields

I wonder if a hundred years ago you ever dreamed of me.