Front Porch Reflections

What made a front porch special? You know, that place where many shared with each other and reached out to those on the street with stories and recipes that brought in the world around them. In my grandmother's time it was special because you spent summer evenings cooling off after hot days kibitzing with the neighbors as they walked past, or if you lived close enough, from porch to porch. You shared the day, and family events and sometimes it was simply a time for quiet reflections of the day or even the week as the moon rose high in a summertime sky.

It was a time that families sat together, something that is often not possible in this age of overworked parents and over involved kids. I'm trying to recature that feeling of letting go and enjoying the natural world around us, along with friends and family rocking over floors that held tight the imprints of many rocker foot prints that were gentley worked into the long pinewood floors of those old neighborhood porches.

So how can we put into words what such a small part of a home could create for many families and often for whole neighborhoods that comfort zone where trust was a way of life, and family often meant all who lived nearby on the street.

So what made that experience and the memories that were made of that time an anchor in many a childhood, and it gave many a framework for what became a tight knit family grouping in that period in history.