Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 20

There's no problem that a long sit on a front porch can't solve.

"Nobody thought much about the front porch when most Americans had them and used them. The great American front porch was just there, open and sociable, an unassigned part of the house that belonged to everyone and no one, a place for family and friends to pass the time."
--Rochlin, The Front Porch, in Home, Sweet Home

When builders deleted the front porch from construction of Dixie homes and replaced it with big white garages, with mouths that open in the evenings to gobble up the residents and open again in the mornings to spit them out, they did us a huge injustice. Now, not only do so many of us miss out on chatting up our neighbors about the weather, the creek water rising, and a cup of sugar, but a lot of people can't even call their neighbors by name.

And I've got a theory about the demise of the front porch and its affect on modern life. When the front porch disappeared from southern architecture, folks got so distraught that they either sped up, too deeply burying themselves in hurried busy-ness to ruminate on the glaring omission, or they went inside, plopped on their sofas, and distracted themselves from the trauma by hypnotically watching one television show after another.

And if you ask me, that's when people altogether quit talking to each other in that slow drawl that indicates a good story will shortly roll off the tongue. That's when folks forgot how to wave at just anybody, just because. That's when making money became more important than making memories or making friends. That's when we started fearing our neighbors, suspiciously eyeing, from behind blinds, the fellow walking down the sidewalk.

Most of all, that's when problems started brewing and people started ignoring them instead of solving them. Back when family members and friends gathered on the porch on a long afternoon or after the evening meal, they hashed out everything from which team oughta win the pennant race to how America should respond to Cuba to giving Little Jimmy the what's-for about his grades in school. And everybody slept better at night having shared the burden of carrying the weight of the world.

Although we have one now, and spend many an hour there, my husband and I haven't always had a front porch. But throughout the years we have managed to carve out perches on the public sides of our many different homes; conversational venues for ourselves, where we share an evening toddy and our views on local politics, world affairs, or the grass that needs cutting. We wave to passing drivers or shout "Hello" to a jogger or invite a friend out for a stroll to sit and jaw awhile. And sometimes we simply let the crickets talk it out for us.

Since I discovered the power of the porch, there hasn't been a day I can't face knowing that my front porch, in in all the forms it has taken - lawn chairs in the grass, the tailgate of my daddy's truck, a blanket on the lawn, the brick steps - awaits me at the end of it.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Find, create, claim your front porch. A place to sit, to slow down, to share, to reconnect, to watch the world go by, and to wave at just anybody, just because. A place to fearlessly face problems, big and small, with a soul mate, your children, your friends, the neighbor down the street whom you've been meaning to meet. Because there is absolutely no problem that a long sit on a front porch can't fix.

The New Faux Pas

Back in Mama T's day, that's my late grandmother, smoking and walking was about the tackiest thing a woman could do. Going in public without lipstick ran a close second. Unlike the lipstick oversight, in which unkempt lips was the real error of her ways, in the walking and smoking travesty smoking had nothing to do with the transgression.

A woman could sit and smoke until her lungs fell out and she croaked like a midnight catfish and not a soul would bat an eye. A woman could chat on the party line and inhale enough creosote to pave a road from Georgia to Montana and no one would think the lesser of her. She could even drive carpool with the windows rolled up and her children choking pneumatically in the rear seat and who in the world would dare accuse her of behaving un-ladylike.

But as soon as she began the long, unvirtuous walk from her car to the doors of the grocery store with a tobacco stick dangling from her lip or squeezed between two fingers with painted over yellowed nails, the Junior League president would be on the phone with the Garden Club president. Her UDC and DAR ribbons would be stripped from her lapel, and she would never again be asked to make her lemon squares for the UMW bake sale the Sunday after Easter.

Of course, now that smoking itself has fallen out of favor and walking has gained great strides in the health and fitness world, we've had to search high and low for a way to distinguish quality folks from the undesirables. But sitting on Charlotte's front porch swing on Tuesday, I figured it out, the standard we've been missing. Some savvy socialites already apply it, but they've jumped ahead of the curve.

The new litmus test for judging character and self-worth is where people park their cars when they get home from a long day at the grind stone. Front yard parkers, who leave their cars on lawn or dirt (same as putting the car on blocks as far as their neighbors are concerned, even if the car is a Jaguar) for all the world to see, couldn't get an invitation to join the Colonial Dames if they descended straight from the Jamestown settlers.

A proper lady tucks her car at the rear of her domicile and enters through the backdoor, so that her premises will appear undisturbed, pristine, and desolate, just as a realtor or HGTV host would have it. She will never mar the beauty of her home by sitting on the front porch, allowing her pets to frolic in the front yard, or letting her children toss a ball where someone might see. No one wants to view an old lady tottering to her front door or sprawled on the steps with a broken hip. It's uncouth. Folks simply can't bear to watch a young mother tote groceries into the house. How degrading.

Walking and smoking no longer the downfall of genteel living, it's the misparked car that will bring civilization to a hallelujah-halt in the south. Untinted lips, however, still run a close second.