Aunt Naomi’s Porch

My Aunt Naomi lived outside Albany, Georgia, in a white house with a porch that always needed painting.

She worked at the county office for thirty-two years and knew everybody’s paperwork before they did. Birth certificates, land records, marriage licenses, tax forms — she helped people who were embarrassed to ask and never made them feel small.

On summer evenings, neighbors came by with peaches, gossip, or nothing at all. She kept a box fan in the window and a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge.

She did not have children, but half our family learned how to be decent by sitting on her porch.