A Winter’s Porch. 1957.

Don, Bob and Lynn.
August eve on the Gilbert porch. 1952.

With my tiny hand in Dad’s, I experienced ice for the first time.
I think I was three. From a big car door to street, to curb, to glazed snow on grass, across the sidewalk and up the steep steps we went. Don’t remember how many steps, more than five I’d bet. Grandma and Grandpa’s house was on top of a knoll, typical of so many homes in Norwood, Ohio, especially on Lyle Lane.

I couldn’t reach the handrail, so Dad steadied me as I watched each footfall slide every which way. My point of balance was miraculously maintained by a one-armed yank, vertical. Handfuls of sand scattered about the steps, most likely by Grandpa, made sure Dad’s footing was sturdy. Yet, for me the ice was so smooth my mittens and boots flew on it. It wrapped everything. So onward, upward we climbed towards their glowing home that winter eve. (Some day I’ll find a photo and count every step.)

The porch’s welcoming, with cozy light from the front door windows, was a couple of stoop steps further. The inside oasis just a few slippery moments away. The wooden porch decking, tongue-n- groove ribbons painted battleship grey, crunched with each footfall. The tranquil, frozen elements connected everything on our trek. The bushes, trees, clapboards, windowsills, porch chairs, all dipped in a fine glaze, and all sparkling from the streetlights.

Here, there, everywhere, an ice-covered world, cold and dazzling and non negotiable to little feet. A new sensation and fascination that could only be explored by sight. Dad’s car way down there, pink and white with frosted windows, the tire tracks from where we’d come. Pools of shadow and light and houses huddled underneath, framed in twinkling ice all the way around the corner to the mailbox and bus stop. 

The Gilbert porch on this winter’s eve was not a warm place to play or sit, as it had been the last time I was there. It was calm and static, my breath puffed away like a steam train, but it wasn’t the place to play tonight. It wasn’t the place where all my uncles sat on hot summer nights enjoying their incredible fraternity, laughing over beers and smokes with Grandpa. It wasn’t the place where my cousins Lynn and Denny ate juicy watermelon. Grandma wouldn’t be singing Pony Boy and rock me on her knee here tonight, but it was the safe harbor of this journeys end.

And how did Grandpa know we were almost at the door without a knock? In my mind that was another reason he was magic, bigger than a king, as he opened the door.  With the smell of cornbread, and boiled green beans, potatoes’n ham, his hearty "howdy strangers" lassoed us in. Transom crossed, the frozen floorboards glowed golden and warm again, it always did when Courtney and Jewel stepped out on their porch.