It’s time for a come to Jesus meetin and I’m here to tell you the gospel truth about what’s going on right here in our very own community. We’ve got trouble. That’s right we’ve got trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for porches. Somebody say, Amen!
Now the porches in question are Front Porches. We’ve got some great porches right here in my own little town of Winooski and our neighbor Burlington has a whole bunch more. And, I think I’m safe in saying that the Great State of Vermont can be proud of it’s porches.
These porches are filled with flowering plants, wicker furniture, and rocking chairs but do you know what’s missing? That’s right – there’s no people on those porches.
Do you know that me and my mama drove all over Burlington today because well, that’s what she likes to do on Saturday and you all know my mama well enough by now that you know it’s best to just do what she says – and we didn’t see one single person sitting on their porch!
Front porches are important people – they keep communities together and besides, how the hell are you going to keep tabs on your neighbors if you don’t sit on the front porch? Porches are where you sit and rock and whittle and talk to, or about your neighbors as the case may be – oh, wait that’s in Texas.
Now I’m not writing this to fuss at you or tell you you’re not up to par with Texans. Hell even Texans aren’t doing any porch sitting in the middle of the day right now because it’s hotter than a billy goat in a pepper patch.
You all know by now that I’m not native to these parts but I’ve lived here almost nine years and I swear that there is no place on god’s green earth that I love more than Vermont in the summer.
People are outside riding their bikes and walking their dogs and just laughing at the sheer wonder of sunshine and warm breezes. It is a site to behold. But the thing I’m always dumbfounded by every summer is all those beautiful porches and not a soul sitting on them. I just don’t understand it!
I didn’t have a front porch when I was a kid but we had a front yard. Every night after dinner the neighbors would begin arriving with their lawn chairs and pretty soon we’d have a circle of people talking about their day and watching the kids roller skate up and down the sidewalk.
You know what I really miss about Texas front porches, especially in Austin and Denton? I miss musicians jamming on their porches in the evenings. In Denton where I spent six of the best years of my life I could take a walk around the neighborhood and somebody was sure to be out playing. I didn’t play but I could sit on the step and listen.
Just about every town or city in Texas, or well, anywhere in the south, has a core of houses with front porches that people actually sit on! Now almost all of those houses were built before people started buying televisions and air conditioners. Houses built after the 50s have these puny little porches that have room for a couple of chairs but they’re nothing compared to the big porches I love.
One reason people used to build big porches is that it’s hot in Texas and in the evenings a porch is a good place to catch a breeze. Sometimes there was even a sleeping porch on the side of the house. But mainly porches are places to talk to the neighbors, greet visitors, and watch the kids play.
As an adult I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a few of those old houses with great porches and one of them is here in Winooski where I’m at this moment sitting in the porch swing that my friends have signed over the years, drinking a glass of wine and talking to you.
Back in Texas I threw some damn fine parties on my front porch – I mean all I had to do was tell three or four people I was having a porch night and by 10:00 I’d have anywhere from five to fifty people at my house.
I tried that when I moved to Vermont and absolutely no one came. A friend clued me in that I needed to send out invitations two weeks in advance if I wanted people to actually come to my house. They were never going to stop by spontaneously or be available if I just called and said come on over. And I also needed to start the party at 6:30 or 7:00 so it would be over by 9:00 so everyone could go home. Back home my parties didn’t start until 9:00 or 10:00 and ended with a 3:00 AM trip to IHOP.
God love you, you’re friendly people but you’ve got some kind of psychosis about having to be invited and an especially severe case of being scaredy cats over being seen on your porch or in the front yard. It’s like there’s some rule that if you’re outside you have to be doing something like walking the dog or mowing the yard. You can’t just sit on the porch.
So here’s the thing – you are invited to come sit on my porch. I’m inviting you right now. Just stop by, I’ll be thrilled to see you and even if I’m not I’ll fake it so well you’ll never know the difference – I am a Southern gal after all.
Well that’s not absolutely correct. You see Texas isn’t really part of the South even though much of Southern culture lives just fine in Texas, especially in East Texas, and Texas isn’t really part of the West even though West Texas is more like the West than the South and South Texas is more Mexican than the rest of the state. It’s just a huge place with a wild mix of South, West, Mexico, Native, and African peoples but we resent being called a Southern state or a Western state because we are Texas and that speaks for itself.
But as I was saying Dear Reader, you are invited over to sit with me on my front porch. I’ll give you some iced tea or a glass of wine or a margarita and we’ll just sit, swing, talk, and rock. It’ll be fine – you might even enjoy the whole spontaneousness of it.
You’re not gonna do it are you? What’s wrong with you people?
