I had never really spent much time in Old Orchard Beach, until I met my husband. We came down for special weekends and eventually for our honeymoon. The bed and breakfast never happened, but those purple chairs brought many new and old friends to my front porch and I will never be able to bring back that time again.
One of my favorite things to do was to sit on the front porch and watch my world go by. The porch served as a stopping place for strangers and friends alike. My daughter used to say I liked the front porch because I was basically a nosy neighbor – but I don't think I was. I think it was because I'm at heart a very social person – I love talking to people – all different kinds of people.
I met some really wonderful people on my front porch, people that became good friends and many acquaintances that I still run into occasionally. In warm weather I spent more time on my porch than in any other place in my home. I must admit I spent a great deal of that time reading – after all the library was right down the street. Of course I did many other things on that porch, planted flowers for my weed garden. I called it that because no matter how often I weeded, they always seemed to grow back in spades. I finally gave up and enjoyed the flowering weeds as well. I tended my potted morning glories, inhaled the aroma of the lilac, and watched the butterfly bush get bigger and bigger.
Later on in the summer, the aroma of the flowers changed to sea air laced with a smidgen of pizza and pier fries, guaranteed to get me out of my purple chair and down to the beach for a snack. Then back to the porch to await the arrival of the monarch butterflies, attracted to the butterfly bush for a snack on their migration to warmer climes. The monarchs brought joy and comfort because every time I saw them I remembered my departed sisters, who loved them as well.
One day as I sat there reading, a woman approached and said hello and told me she had spent summers in my house with her grandmother, and sat on that very same porch. She seemed to have the same sort of feeling as I about the front porch so I invited her to sit for awhile. She asked if she could go inside to see if she remembered anything from her childhood and as soon as she saw the funny old built in ironing board and the wonderful fireplace in what used to be the living room of that one family home, she seemed to be overwhelmed by emotion. Thus passed another pleasant afternoon on the porch of the purple chairs.
Another person that stands out in my mind as I sit here writing this story is Brian. Although I'm not sure exactly how old Brian was, I assumed he was in his late forties or so. He was a painter, handyman, carpenter sort of guy, that had, I believe, lived in Old Orchard Beach for quite a long time. He seemed to have many friends, but I only knew him superficially until he came to paint my porch. You know what the wonderful sea air does to a paint job over time, it needs to be redone every year or so. I could have done it myself, but Brian came to me and shared his need to get a little work and maybe make a little money. You see, he had terminal cancer, and couldn't hold down a real job anymore. He still wanted to be needed, like we all do, to feel that he was accomplishing something, however small, each day.
I was in no big hurry to get the porch done, so I agreed to give him the job. He showed up for work every morning that he was able, and would scrape and paint my old front porch for an hour or two a day until he tired, and then he would sit down with me and talk to me about his life in Old Orchard Beach and what was left for him to do. I think he left some stories in the same condition as the porch – unfinished. But that didn't concern me. He died before he could get it done, but at the last he asked if I could help another friend of his who was in similar circumstances, give him the work that Brian was unable to finish. Thinking about his friend instead of his own imminent death. I don't think I will ever forget him or his caring spirit.
There is, after all, something comforting about sitting on your front porch and knowing many of the people that pass by and sometimes stop for awhile. Having been brought up and lived in Portland for most of my life, I didn't get that community feel that I do from living in Old Orchard Beach. My porch represented for me that feeling of community. After all, isn't connection what we all seek in life? I know that I will never again find the peace that I found on that particular front porch and even though it no longer looks the same, and I, in fact, no longer live there, I will remember those days with fondness and miss the people that are gone.
Kathy Rivers
