Sittin' on the Porch

 

Pick your Seat

Up the gravel driveway, to the top of the hill,

Then many steps up to the porch were no thrill,

The porch was a good 12 feet off the ground,

But the creaking of the porch swing made a soothing sound,

And the view from up there was incredibly sublime,

A bird’s eye view of the small town’s skyline,

With a backdrop of rolling hills engulfing the town,

We arrived at our mam-maw’s porch and looking down,

It was lined with gigantic hydrangea bushes across the front,

The pinks, blues and purples of the blooms were magnificent,

On the porch, an array of mismatched chairs spanned the length of the concrete,

With the front door separating two sections of seats,

The chair choices ranged from rocking chairs to metal folding ones,

To wooden straight-backed, caned-bottomed chairs, stools or even plastic garden ones,

Some had cushions on them, and some did not,

Sometimes it was cool there and sometimes it was hot,

As children we rushed to get the seat we desired,

For sitting on the porch for a visit was required,

Sometimes a box fan was necessary to make it comfortable,

A jacket in the fall or a coat in winter to make it tolerable,

My mam-maw sat in the porch swing, breaking beans, as a rule,

I chose a straight-backed chair because I was no fool,

In that type of chair, I could lean on two legs, up against the wall,

With my mother always warning, “be careful, you’ll fall”,

There is just something nostalgic about a straight-backed, cane-bottomed lean,

Along with the slam of a porch door, made only of screen,

Screened door, comfy chair, creaking swing, breaking beans,

The sights and sounds of country folks’ porch dreams.

Tammy Harvey

9/8/2026

Oversized Dilemma

 

The Oversized Dilemma

My daughter-in-law loves to decorate her home in the most magazine-like ways.  She has a knack for putting together colors and a style that is appealing.  It is somewhat of a minimalist approach, with choice pieces to complete every look.  They had just remodeled their kitchen, and she had purchased a new light fixture for the adjacent family room.  It was a statement piece!  To adorn the 2-story ceiling that had always had a mundane ceiling fan, she had purchased a large spherical light fixture made from capiz shells.  It would hang from a long chain in the middle of the space to complete her vision.  The day of the installation, a team was assembled.  That is, all of my sons were called together to attempt this feat.  I lived next door so, of course, I was there to “aide”.  It was a fragile sphere that was stored carefully in a box in the garage.  Once removed from the packaging, it became apparent the light fixture would not fit through any of the exterior doors to the home.  It was probably a 36-inch diameter sphere that was basically the same width as the largest doorway.  There was no turning it on its side or squeezing it through as the capiz shells were subject to break with any pressure on them.  After much deliberation, my daughter-in-law resigned to the fact that she would just resale the item and get something else.  Oh, but they only needed a tiny bit more space!  It was decided that they would remove the framing from around the front door.  They ended up destroying the wood trim around the front door which had to then be replaced, but they inevitably got the huge fragile sphere inside.  It was at that point that they decided to hire someone to actually hang it, but today it is hanging there, completing the intended look.  It makes me smile each time to look up and see it because I remember the day it was so gingerly brought inside!

Tammy Harvey

9/8/2026 

Baby on the Way

 

Baby on the Way

Ten years ago, when my son’s wife was pregnant with our first grandbaby, they had just purchased their first home together.  It was a small starter home with 3 small bedrooms and 2 baths with no garage.  It had a beautiful deck outside the back door of the kitchen and a fenced-in backyard with plenty of beautiful landscapes.  They navigated a gender reveal party and began decorating a nautical-themed nursery for a baby boy due in only a few months.  As a family project, we added a cover over the deck area.  At some point, I was standing in their backyard at the corner of the deck that was so inviting.  My son mentioned to me how he needed to remove the rose bushes from the yard.  There were many of them.  Curiously I asked him why. He said it was because the baby might get hurt on the thorns.  Without even thinking, I quickly replied.  I asked him if he was going to take the stove out of the kitchen also.  He looked perplexed.  I told him the stove would be hot and if the baby touched it, he could get hurt.   I said that he would only touch the thorny bush one time before knowing it was not a good idea.  Natural consequences are the best teacher sometimes, I implied.  I think he must have understood my thought process because he did not remove the rose bushes from the yard or the stove from the kitchen!

First time parents are very protective, as they should be.  Now with three children and 10 years of experience, my son is the best balance of safety and life lessons.  He has had the opportunity to parent 2 boys and then become a girl dad.  He will tell you that there is a huge difference between raising girls and boys.  I did not have that experience as all three of my children are boys!  At this point, he could teach me a thing or two.  

Tammy Harvey

9/6/2026

How Long?

 

How Long?

As long as ducks quack and frogs croak,

As long as when you crack an egg, you get a yolk,

As long as donkeys bray and cows come home,

When stars shine and wild horses roam,

As long as doves cry and flowers bloom,

And thunder makes a resounding boom,

As long as the road meets the horizon,

And the full moon is arising,

As long as the ocean meets the shore,

When the earth is behind me and I breathe no more,

That is how long I will love you!

Tammy Harvey

8/12/2026

Howard C Langston

 Memories of my Grandfather

Howard Clarence Langston was my mother’s father, my maternal grandfather.  He was born on February 9, 1906, and lived to be 74 years old.  I was only 20 years old when he passed away, June 12, 1980.  Father’s Day was June 15 that year.  I’ll always remember how his funeral was so close to the day dedicated to fathers.  He died of a fatal stroke in his kitchen during the wee hours of the night after returning from the outhouse.  I would like my grandchildren to know a little about him and thus I am recording my fond memories of him. 

 He was born and raised in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.  He was a carpenter.  He built houses including his own and the home for my mother and father when they were married. He gave them a corner of his property for their new home to start their lives together.  When I was born, we lived in that home.  That home, in fact, became rental property for approximately 60 years after my parents moved to Knoxville.   It was 810 square feet with 2 bedrooms and one bathroom on a lot slightly larger than a half-acre. We ultimately sold it in 2023. An aside story about that house is the fact that a thorny pasture field was all that separated it from my grandparents’ house.  When we were small my mother would lift us over the barbed-wire fence and send us off to my grandmother waiting on the other side of the pasture field.  They could both watch us safely depart and arrive for a welcoming visit with my grandmother.  As my grandmother told the story, when my sister, only 18 months older than myself, would encounter her first brier prick she would turn around and run back crying to our mother.  On the other hand, I would push through all the briers and arrive at my grandmother’s embrace with scratched up legs!    

My grandfather was a painter.  Even though he was color blind, he painted interiors and exteriors.  He would return home from a day of painting and go behind the garage to clean his paintbrushes.  The wall faced the wooded area of his property that no one sees.  There he would rinse the brush and paint the side of the garage until the brush came out clean.  There was a “mural” of colors on the back side of that garage.  He had built that particular garage for my mother to keep her car in.  She lived with them when my father was in the army in Korea.

He was limber.  I remember he could sit crisscross and then stand up on his knees and walk.  He challenged us to do the same. He always wore high back bib overalls. Every day he wore Liberty (Big Smith) denim overalls, except on Sundays. On Sundays he wore a shirt and pants and a Homberg style hat.  He always drove a Chevy pickup truck with a straight shift.  It had to be a Chevrolet, with a step side.   I remember riding to church sitting in the middle between my grandmother and him while he shifted gears.  I think his shifter was on the steering column.

He was a man of God.  He said grace before every meal.  He got up early to tend to the woodstove which heated the house.  In the early hours, he sat in the corner next to the stove reading his Bible every day.  He didn’t believe in modern luxuries.  They had no heat or air conditioning.  They had gotten indoor plumbing, but he refused to use the indoor toilet.  He always went to the outhouse, even if it was in the middle of the night.  He never wasted city water either. Water was a commodity that was costly and he treated it like gold.  His house was unique as it sat right on the county line between Sevier County and Jefferson County. He ate meals in Jefferson County and slept in Sevier County. 

He would sit down with an apple and pull out his pocketknife.  I was always in awe of how he carefully peeled the apple in one continuous spiral without breaking the peel.  He would then slice off pieces of the apple and eat them right off the knife’s blade.

He had a sense of humor.  He liked to tell us funny stories and make jokes which irritated my grandmother.  She fed him three square meals a day.  For breakfast, he always had two poached eggs and toast.  She prepared a hot lunch and then served the leftovers for dinner.  He would come home for lunch most of the time when he was painting.  Otherwise, he carried a metal lunchbox, the rectangular kind with the domed lid for the thermos.

On occasion, he took us to the local gas station, Underwood & Petty at 804 Asheville Hwy in Strawberry Plains, TN.  He would buy us a “dope” which was a grape soda in a glass bottle, and a moon pie.  The locals would gather there around the stove in a circle of straight-backed, cane-bottomed chairs.  They exchanged pleasantries and news, good and bad.  It was a place he would go to “hang out” in the afternoon after his workday was over.

Tammy Harvey

8/15/2026

My First Car

 

My First Car

My first car was not one I owned but rather one that my dad let me drive, a 1973 Chevrolet El Camino.   It was a company car he had purchased for a Public Relations representative to promote his health club business.  Mr. James Waller, a retiree from Pittsburgh Paint, drove it proudly around town handing out free passes to strangers who might come and try out the exercise program.  After trying it, the hope was for my dad to sell them memberships.   My dad had magnetic signs made to adorn each side of the vehicle to create a moving billboard.  “Continental Health Club located in Western Plaza” with a phone number and a muscleman symbol comprised the white signs with black lettering. 

By the time I inherited the car to drive, Mr. Waller had passed away, and the position was never filled again.  After all, no one could have filled the shoes of Mr. Waller, who my dad had recognized as everyone’s grandfather and a personable promoter.  I was in high school when I began driving the 1973 El Camino.  I started driving when I turned 16 in 1976.  I “learned” to drive when my dad took me to the local West Town mall in the El Camino on a Sunday morning when the mall was closed.  The parking lot was absolutely bare.  He had me turn left and right a few times then said “okay, drive me home now”.   I was terrified.  I later went on to take a driver’s education class in high school.

The summer of 1977 I drove it to my first job as a summer day camp attendant for Knox County.  It was a pilot program where parents could drop their children off with me at Bluegrass Elementary School.  We had access to board games and a kickball field.  I had kids from kindergarten through 5^th grade to entertain, without a bathroom, from 10 am-3pm!   I remember driving up to the school in the El Camino with Waylon Jenning’s “Luckenbach, Texas” playing on the radio.  I suppose I removed the magnetic promo signs at this point.  My dream job, or so I thought, was to work at Cracker Barrel in the summer of 1978.  I did accomplish that goal but hated being a waitress and only lasted 3 weeks.  Instead, I found a job at Captain D’s fast-food restaurant where I worked as cashier and drive-through attendant.  During my first quarter of college in fall of 1978, I commuted 8 miles to campus and drove this vehicle back and forth daily.  This is when I fell in love with it.  It was so light in the back and would absolutely fly and steering it only required one finger.  I always took the backroads, and thinking back I wonder why I never ended up in the cow pasture!  Those rural roads were narrow and had no shoulders and were curvy and hilly.  I surpassed the speed limit everyday going to my classes.  After that initial quarter at college, however, I chose to move to a campus dormitory because commuting/parking was not ideal, and I wanted to receive the full college experience of independent living.

Back at home in the summer of 1979, driving the El Camino, I worked at Shores Market on Northshore drive, ironically, I took the same road I took to get to campus.  The market was a convenience store with a deli/food counter and gas station.  I sold a lot of cigarettes and beer and made a lot of sandwiches and fried chicken & potato wedges.  I learned to make change, check id’s and watch a man drain the hose of the gas pump into his car every time after the pump cut off.  Funny how certain memories stick with you.  In the fall of 1980, I took part in a co-op program and was hired to work at Powell Manufacturing Company in Bennettsville, SC.  My Dad and I drove there in the El Camino; he got me settled in and flew home.  I rented a room from a lady, Margaret Rogers, and experienced the culture shock of a lifetime.  I lived across the street from a tobacco field in Marlboro County.  I worked as a draftsman for Powell, making changes to their blueprints.  Powell was a manufacturer of tobacco harvesting equipment.  I was born and raised in Knoxville, TN and living in Bennettsville was an education in itself, but that is a story for another day.  The co-op position, however, confirmed to me that agricultural engineering was the right choice of curriculum for me.

Because I spent the fall and spring of 1980 in Bennettsville, I had to attend college classes in the summer of 1980.  Now I was living with my parents in a home on the lake which was 16 miles from campus.  They had moved while I was in Bennettsville in the spring of 1980.   I despised going to summer school but still enjoyed “flying” the El Camino down those rural roads.  It had an exceptional air conditioner!  I only spent two quarters as a co-op student and in fall 1981 I was back on campus again.  It is worth mentioning, however, that in the spring of 1980 on my second 10-week stay in Bennettsville, my dad insisted that I take his BMW 530i to Bennettsville instead of the El Camino.  I did so, but being naïve I did not know I was driving a luxury car.  In this little town of 8,774 people, with a black population of 48.6%, this choice of vehicle being driven by a 20-year-old young lady brought quite the attention to it.  

The El Camino was a sparkly emerald, green color with a bench seat and essentially was a 2-door car with a truck bed on the back and a 350hp, V-8 engine. There was a white pleather-looking snap-on cover that I could use to hide the truck bed.  I drove it home from Bennettsville at Christmas of 1980.  By now, I really considered it mine, since it was my dedicated ride.  I paid my car insurance.  I took pride in it and kept it washed and waxed.  In the summer of 1981 when I worked for Digenova’s Pizza, a local pizza place owned by Dan Digenova, he talked me into putting a Holley carburetor on it.  When it needed tires, he advised me to put retreads on it. 

I went back to school for my senior year in the fall of 1981and graduated in December of 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering.  I was only the third female at the University of Tennessee to receive  this degree.   I worked again in the summer of 1982 for Digenova’s Pizza and continued to work there after I graduated.  I searched for a job while driving El Camino to the pizza restaurant.  I ate pizza every day for months and never grew tired of it.  When I finally landed a job, in August, it was with the USDA- ARS in Florence, SC, just 40 miles south of Bennettsville!  At that point, I was expected to buy my own car, which I did.  I purchased a 1981 Toyota Corolla, 4-door, 5-speed stick shift in July of 1983 for $6500.  My dad refused to co-sign the loan for me (on principle) because my starting salary was so high, by his estimation.   My dad, in turn, sold the El Camino to Margaret Rogers’ daughter, Ellen in McColl, SC, just NE of Bennettsville.  Why didn’t I just buy El Camino from my dad?  I really don’t know.  It was never really my car, but for years I got to use it as if it were!  I drove to Florence, SC in my Toyota Corolla, as owner of my first car, and began my job there on August 21, 1983.

On August 28, 1983, in Florence, I met my husband to be.  We dated for a year and a half before marrying on May 25, 1985.  During our dating time, he found out my car loan interest rate was 12% because there was no co-signer, and immediately he paid off my car!

Tammy Harvey  8/2/2026  

A Tribute to Dolly

I was born and raised in East Tennessee and my family was from Jefferson County which is close to Sevierville where Dolly was born.  All my life, I have heard stories of Dolly and heard her music.  She was no stranger to me, in fact, it felt like she was a personal friend.

A Tribute to Dolly

The cabin was at the base of the mountain, the old homeplace,

Surrounded by fields of wildflowers with plenty of running space,

The winding road that led up there was just a metaphor,

For life’s journey that returns her to this old front door,

This old porch holds her memories of good times and bad,

Rich in love and family spirit, for that’s all she really had,

Neon moss covered the ground around the shaded yard,

Soft and cool to the touch, though life was pretty hard,

She could lie down on that moss and dream her wildest dream,

As the smoke rolled off the mountain top like enchanted steam,

The sky was the only limit for her, like a butterfly, she had wings,

She made the most of everyday and loved the simplest things,

Sometimes she sang “the sky is green and the grass is blue”,

But her motto remained, even then: “to thine own self be true”,

Her laughter was contagious and her generosity knew no bound,

A kind and gentle soul with the tenacity of a bluetick hound,

Dolly held onto what her mama taught her: “Love never fails”,

She may be gone from earth, but the wind hasn’t left her sails,

Her music lives on for all of us, as does her legacy of love,

And now with angel wings, she’s looking down from above.

Tammy Harvey

9/4/2026