“Key word: swing.” Write a story about swings? We did write about porches and that turned out all right, but swings? Well, I thought about the key word and looked it up in the dictionary. It took half a page to tell me about the word. Didn’t Kim mention something about subplots? What’s written here may be nothing but subplots if any plot at all.

My first recollection of “swing” is from Uncle Billy’s sitting room on a Sunday afternoon when I was very young. There was nothing for a young fellow to do but sit with the old folks while they talked and the clock ticked off the seconds to the swing of the clock’s pendulum which swung ever more slowly as the day passed.

I learned more about our key word back home when I disobeyed my daddy. He had a peach tree in the yard that provided him with more than ample means of delivering what he called peach tree tea. His delivery system was simple. He broke off a small switch and with a couple of swings he applied the tea to my bare legs [I hated shorts]. It took only two or three swings to enhance my memory. I don’t like to admit it, but I deserved the tea he served.

I learned the picture that most readily comes to mind with the word “swing” at the home of one of my country cousins. There, hanging from a branch of a tall tree, was a pair of ropes spaced a few feet apart and reaching to knee-high from the ground with a plank seat attached to the ends of the ropes. It was pure delight to sit in the swing and ride to and fro feeling the breeze thus created on a hot day. A little later in life I discovered similar swings in playgrounds.

In 1930 I learned that there were swings in the economy when Daddy lost his job three times and ended up in another state. The swing turned out to be a really big one; swinging into the Great Depression and taking a war to swing it back out.

I believe the war caused the near demise of the porch swing. Before the war almost all houses had front porches. Most houses built afterwards had no front porch and therefore no place for a swing. That’s a shame because it tended to isolate neighbors from one another. 

Not far from our high school there was a sandwich shop with booths around a small dance floor with a jukebox. Some of the high school kids were usually there after school snacking and dancing. The time was during the big band era. Big band swing tunes played on the jukebox for a nickel and the dancers responded with their swing dancing. I sometimes stopped by to see what was going on. I couldn’t dance and so I watched with envy. On my way home I would frequently swing around the block just to see if a certain girl might be sitting in her porch swing and I could stop for a little visit. I was usually disappointed by seeing the empty swing.

There were no trips to the sandwich shop for me during football season. The team practiced until nearly dark every day. It may be hard to believe, but I played tackle for the Pineville Mountain Lions. We were leading 6 to 0 in the big game versus the Corbin Red Dogs. The crowd was very happy that we, the underdogs, were doing well. It was Corbin’s ball and they called a running play. Both our left end and I broke through their line and hit the ball carrier at the same time from opposite sides. Our momentum swung my teammate and me feet first toward one another. The resulting collision between his heel and my shinbone ended my football career by breaking the leg. The mood of the crowd swung from light-hearted to reserved at least for a while. Our team won the game and the conference championship.

I saw many swinging bridges in my young life. There were short ones across creeks and long ones that spanned rivers. Swinging bridges are usually footbridges suspended from a pair of cables spanning a crossing. Walking across a swinging bridge can feel like walking on a living thing. Put down a foot and the floor is not where it ought to be. This is especially true if there are other walkers on the bridge. One of my occasional dreams was about walking across a swinging bridge. I never made it to the other side before waking up.

I’ve mentioned a few of my childhood encounters with “swing”. As I grew older there were many more swings in my life; swings in mood, attitude, fortune, responsibility, happiness, grief and lots of other things. Maybe I have swung into old age, but I doubt it. I think old age just crept up on me.