For Myrrh (!)

If the World Had a Front Porch

It was where my Mama sat on that old swing with her crochet

It was where Granddaddy taught me how to cuss and how to pray

It was where we made our own ice cream those sultry summer nights

where the bulldog had her puppies,

and us brothers had our fights

There were many nights I'd sit right there and look out at the stars

To the sound of a distant whippoorwill or the hum of a passing car

It was where I first got up the nerve to steal me my first kiss

and it was where I learned to play guitar and pray I had the gift

If the world had a front porch like we did back then

We'd still have our problems but we'd all be friends

Treating your neighbor like he's your next of kin

Wouldn't be gone with the wind

If the world had a front porch, like we did back then

Purple hulls and pintos, I've shelled more than my share

As lightening bugs and crickets danced in the evening air

And like a beacon that old yellow bulb, it always led me home

Somehow Mama always knew just when to leave it on

Treating your neighbor like he's your next of kin

Wouldn't be gone with the wind

If the world had a front porch, like we did back then

The chorus of this song make interesting points: When he says, if we had a front porch, "we'd still have our problems but we would all be friends," the author rightly points us to the importance of local community and politics and concrete, face-to-face relationships for solving the prudential questions of politics. It isn't the case that we shouldn't disagree, but rather that when we disagree we know who it is that we are disagreeing with in order to preserve respect for others as persons. At the same time, the fact is that the world can't have a front porch. This shows an inadequacy of globalism in its detraction from local political interactions, which help us know our neighbor as a person rather than abstractly.


Another good point that this song makes is that treating your neighbor like family will contribute to more stable communities and can prevent the mobility that blows us from place to place with the wind.


So here's to front porches (even make-shift front porches) and smoothies and summertime and good Virginia crops.