The Coonridge Digest: The price of pride

Greetings from the Ridge.

Walking across the cemetery on Memorial Day I stumbled across a couple of names that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. Kent and Melvin Porter. Father and son. Unlike most of the family tombstones in the Coonridge cemetery, one name is facing east and the other west. That’s the way they lived their lives.

Kent and Melvin lived together for some forty years, and as far as anyone could ever tell, they never spoke to each other. Not a word.

Melvin would cook supper, sit down and eat, then go out to the porch to smoke. Kent would then come into the kitchen, eat his supper, and then wash the dishes.

Melvin would walk down to the mailbox to get the afternoon mail, sort the letters into to piles, then leave Kent’s on the corner of the kitchen table. He’d read the paper, then neatly fold it and leave in on the sofa for his son. If Kent bought a plow or sold some hogs, he’d leave a note at breakfast, telling his Dad how much he owed him or how much he had coming.

Both were Cardinal fans so when Melvin would listen to a late West Coast game while lying in bed at night, he’d turn up the radio loud enough for Kent to hear in his bedroom. Both climbed into their respective pickups on Sunday morning, drove down to the United Brethren Church, sat on opposite sides of the congregation, then drove home — separately.

Only once did their war of silence ever break out into anything resembling a public debate. Melvin was dumping corn into an auger and Kent was regulating the flow of grain through the back tailgate. Either somebody got ahead or the other fellow fell behind, but the result was 200 bushel of corn in the otherwise pristine driveway of their homestead. The corn stayed there through the fall, through the winter, and for the entire next summer. Neither would admit to having made the mistake and their lovely yard that was once pictured on the cover of Farm Living magazine became a soggy, stinky mess for the better part of a year. Word has it that the neighbors cleaned it up one August while Melvin and Kent were out putting up hay. Silently.

When I was young I’d marvel at how two people could live in the same house without speaking a single word to one another. The adults in our community had come to accept the Porters as some sort of aberration of nature — like a two-headed sheep or a dog born with three legs. It was just the nature of things. But to an adolescent on the streets of Coonridge, watching a grown father and son sitting on opposite sides of the church, eating separate meals, and communicating only through notes scribbled on the backs of envelopes — well, it seemed more than odd.

Melvin died at home some twenty years ago. Kent noticed that his breakfast was ready, went into his Dad’s bedroom, and found him. He called the undertaker and asked him to come pick up his father. Kent, along with his two brothers and three cousins were pallbearers carried Melvin to his grave and then he went home to live out the rest of his life. Kent’s tombstone is facing east, and Melvin is looking west.

Last week I heard a young high school graduate give his final speech to the assembled crowd at his commencement. He did a five-minute summary of the world’s wars, terrorist fears, hunger problems, and political disagreements. Then, at seventeen years old he looked at the world and said, "It’s a mess. I don’t understand why people are the way they are, but we’ve got to fix it."

It was a noble gesture expressed by every generation since Adam and Eve watched their boys walk across the stage to get their stone diplomas. And the fact that we’ve yet to solve many of these age old problems of conflict and hate makes me wonder how before long the young graduation speaker will become as jaded and pessimistic of his ancestors.

I’d advise them to take a look at Melvin and Kent Porter’s headstones.

Whatever caused their disagreement happened so long ago that I doubt either could remember the details. And it’s a sure bet that whatever that problem was, the cause has long since passed. What’s left — and what kept fueling their silent war of disagreement — was pride.

Stubbornness. The unwillingness of one party to go halfway — or more than halfway or all the way — to make things right. Being declared the winner had become more important than solving the problem. I wanted to grab the young graduate after the ceremony, hug his eyeballs out, then hold him at arm’s length and say, "God bless you, young man. Now… how much are you willing to sacrifice?"

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.