I walk daily. So I see things. One recent trend has been the porch additions that folks in the neighborhood have been building on the front of their homes. Or at least what looks like a porch.

Actually they're skinny replicas of porches not even wide enough to set a chair on. In other words, it's for ornamentation purposes. That's the best I can make of them. I think they look neat.

Porches, front or back, were a big deal when I grew up. Chairs furnished the porch. It was the place you played as a kid and where the adults visited. You sat on the porch during the long summer evenings to catch the cooling breezes. I did a lot of my YA reading porchside.

Now we live in a split-level that has no porch. We do have a concrete pad, something called a patio. There's a carport, but a carport is for cars, not people. A porch is for people. Some of the neighbors have aftermarket screen porches which are nice. The odd thing is I've never seen anybody using the screen porch.

Maybe air conditioning has usurped the social purpose of the porch. Sticky nights you need A/C or a fan because a porch just doesn't cut it for sleeping. Even so, I miss having the real porch. If you had the blueprints for your new dream house, would you include the porch?

I would, yeah, a roomy one with white columns and make it a wraparound. I'd be writing this blog on my laptop while I sat out on the verandah.

Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles and Quiet Anchorage