The Family Swing
It has always amazed me how a photo can make memories come flooding back, memories you were not even aware are stored in that wonderful data base the brain until it happens.
While at the Look Out for a family gathering I peered into Jimi and Mickie's cabin saw it! There was the porch swing that my daddy had hand made from hardwood that had hung on the back patio at the house in Hurst. I took this photo of it through the screen that encloses the porch. When I looked at it those old memory tapes started rolling.
When dad first completed it sometime in the early 60's I thought it was so beautiful and I still do. Each hardwood slat connected to the other very solid and the back and seat is curved. I remember sitting in it during summer vacation and talking on the phone. The swing hung right outside my bedroom window. I would run the phone cord through the window and talk on the extension phone that plugged into an outlet in my room. This was my own early version of phone outside portability [with the cord]. I would lay in that swing for hours, talking or reading, sometimes just staring into space thinking. It was my haven for several summers. Dad decided to enclose the patio and install sliding glass windows that would open in the spring and summer. He built a fireplace for the cold months of winter. The swing continued to hang in the original spot now enclosed from the wear and tear of weather. It was there for many Christmas Eve & Birthday celebrations and gatherings of the Shelton clan. It was there that I sat as an adult beside my mother and comforted her the evening she received the news that her mother had passed away. In the late 80's when mom and dad moved to Liberty Hill the swing hung on the front porch of that house. There it was the center of many visits that included porch setting, catching up, watching the morning light begin while sipping coffee. It was often a great front row seat to watch grand kids ride my sisters horses, see model rocket launches and many 4th of July firework displays most of which were put on by family since the house and my sisters house were out in the country.
Now it hangs on the porch of the little lake cabin. There is not much family traffic since Jimi and Mickie bought the house that sits atop the cliff overlooking the cabin and lakes. Sometimes Mickie and Jimi set and swing when they go down to put bird seed or corn out. I wonder what different memories the family swing stirs for them? I know it holds many for me as well as our children.
