It's a beautiful fall day here. The only thing spoiling it for me is knowing that it will lead to winter, shorter days, darkness.... But I was reminded this morning of how nice it was growing up with a big front porch that was used. We used it for hanging out, playing on, chatting with friends on, playing the car color game, blowing bubbles from, bike storage, many falls down the stairs onto the concrete sidewalk.... It had and still has many uses.
One of my favorite things about that porch was the fact that we lived in a very mobile neighborhood. We had plenty of neighbors, and right down at the corner we had a little pharmacy, grocery store, bank, gas station, vet, pizza shop, newspaper stand and at one time even a little bagel store, video store and travel agency. Because all those things were so close, everyone would walk to them, right by our front porch. It was the point of neighborly social gatherings. We could sit out on our porch, say hi to everyone who passed by and even chat a bit. In fact, many friends would drive by our house and pull up and stop if we were out on our front porch - it was awesome!
I can also remember as a child my father talking about growing up in a similar neighborhood in a suburb of Chicago. One of his neighbors was the first to get a television on the block, and he would turn it around in the window for all the neighborhood to pile on his front porch and view it each night. Can you imagine, the draw of a new "techie" toy and use of that front porch? What a great way to meet your neighbors!
Today, front porches seem to be vanishing at an alarming rate! At first, they were just shrinking. Our house has a baby front porch. We can fit a couple chairs on it and it even has a little overhang to cover it. It's not the best place to watch a hail storm from (something we also used to do!), nor is it a good place for keeping outdoor toys. There is also barely enough room for 3 people on it! What's worse? only one other home in our court even has something resembling a front porch. The rest of the homes have no place to congregate outside a home. It's really quite sad!
I need to take more advantage of my mom's front porch when we go to Connecticut next time - teach my girls the fun of having one, using one and the value of meeting people from one. Maybe we'll play that car color game, or see which step they can leap from without crashing or maybe we'll even try a game of hide and seek or capture the flag with full use of that porch! So many memories.
OK - now back to my regularly scheduled activity - making guacamole. Too bad I can't serve it from my big front porch!
1 comment:
I am a HUGE fan of front porches--in fact, we have been talking about moving this Spring,,,,and one of my requirements has been that the house needs to have a front porch, or has to have the ability to have one built on. Growing up, I loved to sit on the front porch on summer evenings (no air conditioning!) and read a book or magazine. I loved watching the goings on of the neighborhood, the eventual visits from friends walking by, and everything that went with it. I talk about front porch life all the time.....how I wish we had one now, (we just have a front stoop, not big enough to even put a chair on), and I long for the days that we hopefully eventually will.
It is good to see that there are others out there thinking fondly of that bit of Americana, too.
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