Long ago, but not so far away, actually out on the front porch every Friday and Saturday night neighbors would gather. The air would be filled with people singing, playing guitar, laughing and talking listening to the wind in the pines, the creek beside the house and the whistle and rattle of coal trains on the tracks across the valley, sometime we were interrupted by the deafening roar of coal being dumped into trucks at the tipple just down the road.. There was a tipple across the valley we could see. was something mysterious about that strange looking building with the its dark weather beaten exterior and rows and rows of small windows, that if you stood in the right place near the corner between the barn and the chicken coyp, you could see right thru the building.
Looking back on it , and thinking that it has something to do with the movies i would watch on TV,. That small screen, brought images of the whole world, the news of the day, and lots and lots of old movies made in the British Isles. Still i wasn't the only first grader that could speak with an English accent. leaned from all of those movies about the Gentry in their grand homes.
Where am i going with this? Well, to me it looked like those old, sorta run down estates estates, perched there in the afternoon rain., even though i knew it was a tipple.
I will never forget the first time i heard those trucks being loaded, i was, startled, truly startled.. Stood there looking out the window, i could see the first rays of sunrise, the windows of the building next door, glowing with a yellowish light.. and not having a clue as to what was going on, , curious and kinda scared , and unsure of what to do. It woke me up every morning, had no real need for an alarm clock.. Guessing that this would all change in a few years, when the mines closed. No, that was not something i even could have guessed. might happen., especially that that the "stately manor"
would be abandoned and melt into the the surrounding woods. .
Those weekend nights filled music. stories, watching fireflys, listening to the owls, looking at the stars and moon....just being there were purely magic and to this day i miss them.. Thought they couldn't go on forever..
But that was then and this is now. the porch has been rejuvenated. unlike many of the the houses and builds in this area that have been demolished or abandoned, This house was salvaged, During the renovation pieces of the old wavy type of window glass and charred pottery, also some scorched iron cookware were found, are these the remnants that give credence to a ghost story about this house. or were they merely abandoned there? Good question., the fire that started in the kitchen, that was once located where the porch is now.
A much much smaller crowd sometimes only myself sits out there on a Friday and/or Saturday night, watching the cars go by. Singing is usually a cappella, and there are rarely any children to listen wide eyed to stories. It;s mostly watching the cars, trucks and motorcycles that go past.
No trains across the creek, being filled with coal. shattering the silence of this summer night. Merely the endless stream of cars, trucks and eighteen wheelers seemingly past in the gathering darkness. The haunted looking building was torn down decades ago. In fact all of the tipples that were in this valley are gone. The men , thier faces and hand black from the coal dust, no longer walk down the road, carrying their lunch pails. Which is a good thing because the volume of traffic makes it more than dangerous to walk along the berm.
Having become used to a usually steady stream of traffic, i only notice when the traffic slows down or even stops. Imagine, noticing the silence!!! Or as one neighbor put it, "The only time i notice the traffic is when there isn't any!!" The silence of no traffic feels louder, than the actual noise of traffic. Then there is that eerie silence, Looked it up and it is referred to as Salient silence , it grabs you attention as if you had never heard silence before, makes you wonder what is going on.. I recall once an elderly neighbor of ours said, that he had been startled awake by the lack of traffic sound.
Tonight will be a grand time to sit on the porch, no rain and a light breeze to keep the insect hoards at bay.....a couple of citronella candles might be a nice addition. and i will look up at the sky and perhaps see the waxing moon or an owl., feeling most grateful to be here in this moment.
Well it turns out tonight is another round of thunderstorms.
Sleep well, gentle readers.,
