Tonight, I’m pleased to introduce you to a successful writer I’ve made friends with here on Substack. His name is Ryan Ralston of Southern Route. Been wanting to do this since January, but this is life, right?
Ryan was born and raised in Metro Atlanta. Married his high school sweetheart, they have three children, two daughters and a son—and three dogs (Australian shepherds). No grands.
He has one of the most interesting jobs I’ve heard about in many years. He is employed by a nonprofit organization that works to free the imprisoned innocent. In Georgia, there are about 2,200 innocent men and women currently incarcerated.
Ryan reads at least three hours every evening - mainly horror, and also loves baseball (American League). Southern Routes is his first and only Substack.
He started writing in the 3rd grade (1982-1983) and has never stopped. Ryan first heard about Substack through Chuck Palahniuk, one of his favorite authors. Have to look him up too.
Ryan has about 200 subscribers to Southern Route. Has only published on Substack for about a year and do little-to-no promotion. With that many readers, I’d say Ryan is a successful writer. You should go over to his Substack and check him out.
At this point, I’m thrilled to give you, his essay, From the Front Porch. Enjoy.
FROM THE FRONT PORCH
“I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you.” – Lord Huron, The Night We Met
This is my life. As though haphazardly, I plummeted into a crevasse and decided that since there would be no rescue, I might as well make a go of it; albeit this is the only life I want, it is, for instance, baffling to those who do not hold an understanding that they, too, will find themselves in the same fissure someday, undertaking similar stock.
I look around in awe, pleased at the simplicity of life presently – my wife, our kids, and our dogs. This is progress when you consider that not long ago, my fondest dream was a successful career; twelve-hour days full of hustle, go, hustle, go. Unfortunately, it became my self-identity. I observed my coworkers, and it seemed they were pleased to live on, recording each day but not in the least setting apart one from the other, and while that was the way they abided time, it made for little satisfaction. The nice thing was that there were many things to ignore. But, in the fullness of time, it leaves one empty; as it turns out, life can be lived agreeably, excluding those things that once held significant importance.
As a child, I held firmly to the conviction that I didn’t care if the roof was caving in or the floorboards were in disrepair; my grandparents’ house was picture-perfect, a refuge. It was small, with a big front porch, a stone’s throw from the town square. When I saw it first, the house looked faintly mysterious, and even the tumbledown wooden fences, without forsaking it, brought together a dependable feeling of harmony to all who visited. The house sat nestled off the highway, in thick hardwood and pine, with a smooth flowing, curving creek occasionally choked by fallen leaves and debris from a heavy thunderstorm or beaver dam. The lawn always showed green, and the surrounding land was undeveloped; the house was easily missed if you were looking to find it.
The front door, with its stained-glass window, preferred to stay shut and locked, and the side door, by custom, stood slightly ajar to allow the cats the freedom to come and go as they saw fit. Once, a clothesline hung between two trees in the backyard, and some of the finest tomatoes and banana peppers in the Piedmont grew in a lovely vegetable garden. The woodshed, adjacent to a comfy old hammock, held many hand tools and was stocked with ordinary lawnmowers in varying stages of getting put back together and rusted coffee cans full of loose nuts, screws, nails, and bolts. Pesticides and an assortment of paint cans rested easily on shelves, and an obstinate, timeworn transistor radio would only agree to play AM frequencies.
I had always been too busy at home to do anything; however, a rocking chair on the front porch inevitably asked me to sit come every visit with my grandparents. I’d look out at the woods and creek from the porch; the steady buzz of cicadas and katydids filled the air. A faraway voice was always present that spoke about a way of life I had not yet lived, much less understood. So, I resolved the best a child could do, to be still during those moments and wait in silence for the voice to say: Play on the tire swing or go hunt for crawdads in the creek.
Both my grandparents have since passed; my grandfather had to wait five years to see his bride again. I remember the morning my grandmother and I ate our last breakfast together. We had biscuits with syrup, fried eggs, and sliced fatback. Afterward, we sat easy, rocking the time in chairs on the front porch, with nothing of weight to talk over; our minds unoccupied.
“You get enough to eat?” she finally asked, smiling warmly when I rubbed my belly.
“Yes, ma’am, full as a tick on a bloodhound.” I thought of the day’s work ahead; my taste buds still danced with the persisting hints of salted pig fat and maple syrup, not wanting to move yet, content to be.
“Any tree limbs need cutting back?” Whenever my grandmother asked this question, I knew she’d already seen a few enemies creeping too close to the house, provoking a call to arms. As a matter of fact, I was surprised at being asked, given that Lance Corporal Betty often did her scouting well before the arrival of cavalry; the chosen limbs were forewarned that a battle with a pole saw was eminent, and no prisoners were to be taken alive.
There was a moment of quiet, and my voice broke the silence: “I suppose we could take a look around.” Dubiously, I hid behind a weak grin. My lower back reminded me of how sore it was after using the pole saw last month. The feeble unconscious hope found in a grandson that time will somehow pass supernaturally; when the clock is next seen, it is bedtime, and the day’s work hours ago ended. Persuasive appeals were made to the highest courts in the land and were promptly denied; a compromise was reached: any limb within twenty feet of the house would be pruned.
A few more minutes passed, and the voice told me to get moving; there was much work to do. I stepped in front of my grandmother, off the porch, setting out upon the day. She remained with her cat Maggie, enjoying the rays of sunlight that seeped through the trees, brushing the porch steps a slightly golden hue, and finished her glass of orange juice. If I’d known two months later that I would help my brother carry our grandmother’s body off the porch, her tired bones ready to sleep in the ground, the voice would have been ignored, and the day’s work pushed back. The day my grandmother left this world, not a single limb dared to trespass within twenty feet of her house.
The house was silent when a wary child with an untied shoe first found it, noisy once he entered and filled it with laughter and demands for answers to important questions like, Can he shoot the BB gun or play with Legos, and quiet again when he drove away for the last time, gradually withdrawing in his rearview mirror.
One unsettling observation about childhood is that those years turn. Every 7th of February, I am one year older, farther and farther away from that calming voice, reminding me that the sense of lost years slipping past, lurking somewhere close to the present, is no way to live and that life is best taken in from the front porch.
Ryan Ralston
Southern Routes