Porches

I love porches. I always have. There is a porch on my great-grandfathers house where we spent time during family reunions every year in August. There was a great big bell on one end and a porch swing on the other end. On either side of the front door were rocking chairs.That's Papa with the cigar in his hand. I have always loved the smell of cigars and I'm pretty sure that he is the reason why. He was such a great guy. Anyway, that's one end of the porch in the background and I remember, quite fondly, the fun of those hot summer days on Papa's porch.

One thing I have always wanted, yet never had, is a porch that wraps around a house. Sort of like this one in the picture below. It's one of my Christmas village houses and the porch wraps around the house. I just love that.

And I would give just about anything for a porch similar to it.

My grandparents had a huge porch on the side of their house. It was screened in. It had these flaps between the bottom board and the floor that swung open and you could use the hose and send the dirt right outside through them. I thought that was so dang cool. The best part about their porch was sitting out there with Granddaddy. I would watch him peel an apple with his pocket knife without breaking the peel one single time. It just dangled there in a spiral until he finished. He also used to sit out there and cut open watermelons with that same pocketknife. On July 4th, we would eat BBQ on the porch. At Christmas time, Granddaddy cut the bottom off the tree out there. It really didn't matter what he did out there. I just loved time spent with him.

I love the porches (called piazzas) on the Single Houses downtown Charleston. And, while there is mixed speculation as to the reason for their origins, I just appreciate the fact that they are there. And beautiful.

There is a small porch on our house. In the 26 years we've lived here, I've been able to enjoy the porch about 5 of those years. The rest of the time, it has been used as storage for a bunch of stuff that could, in all seriousness, be categorized as junk. Every single day I walked up on that porch to enter the house trying my utmost to ignore the junk. It's small but such a nice little porch to sit on with the huge oak tree hovering over it. There is a tiny deck on the back of the house, but a deck is not a porch.

I have a friend with whom I have had conversations about porches. We discussed how the invention of air conditioners, which led to the closing of windows, helped lead us to the end of the porch era when people sat on their front porches and had conversations (actual face-to-face conversations) with their neighbors and passersby. I mentioned that a lot of folks around here still do that. If they have a porch that isn't cluttered with junk.

Low and behold, the junk was finally, after at least 20 years, removed from the front porch.

And what is on my list of suggested gifts for Mother's Day this year? Two of these:

Yep. I'm going to do some porch sitting.

Finally.