Our Front Porch

In the spring, summer and fall, the front porch was my favorite place. It was as big as the living room. On a hot day, it was usually cooler than in the house. On one wall there was a fountain. The water didn't come out of the fountain man's mouth any more, but it was still exciting to have our own fountain. The floor of the porch was a dull pink color. I think the ceiling was green. There were two lights in the ceiling, yellow bug lights. One summer we went on vacation. When we came back we found that my father's uncle, who lived near by, had painted the porch as a surprise for us. It was a different kind of surprise than he expected--the new paint on the floor was a much brighter red, and dirt stuck to it in an unpleasant way. My mother was not happy, but was too polite to say anything except "Thank you".

The porch was a place for our family to sit and talk or read a book, and also a place to entertain guests. Sometimes I would come home from school to find my mother sitting on the front porch, visiting with one of my aunts, or with a neighbor or friend. There were a few visitors that I would rather not have seen--especially the ones who would kiss me with a big lipstick kiss, leaving a mark on my cheek that was hard to get off. But mostly it was fun to have visitors, especially if Mommy was serving cookies and lemonade.

There were two nice metal rocking chairs on the porch, one red and one green, with white rockers. There was also a very comfortable reclining chair. One time my mother's friend was sitting on the reclining chair, but she wasn't reclining. I wanted to lean back, so I asked her if I could have the chair, since she wasn't using its most pleasant feature. I didn't understand that it wasn't polite to ask someone to move from her chair. My mother explained it to me, and then I was embarrassed.

One time while Mommy, our neighbor and my sister and I were sitting on the porch, two little neighbor girls, about 3 and 4 years old, quietly went into the house and up to our bedroom. By the time someone realized they were missing and went to find them, they had found my sister's nail polish and used it to paint the hardwood floor. Mae was NOT happy.

The porch had a low brick wall around it. You could sit on the wall if all the chairs were occupied. But, even better, you could jump off the wall, over the sticker bushes, to the ground around the porch. It sounds scary now, but at the time it was a lot of fun. You could also climb UP the wall back onto the porch.

Another fun activity on the porch was bouncing a ball on the floor. You could also bounce it off the ceiling. (We also bounced balls on the ceiling in the sunroom attached to the porch, but got in trouble one time because the ball had a raised star on it, which was sort of dirty and left big star marks on the ceiling). We also played step ball on the porch steps. There were four of them, the perfect number. You got a different number of points for different kinds of bounces and catches. You would throw the ball at the steps and catch it on the return. You got 5 points if you caught the ball on one bounce. You got 10 points if you got it on a fly. You got 100 points if it bounced off the point of the step and you caught it on the fly, or 500 if it bounced off the point of the top step and you caught it.

I used to play a game called "Shoe Kick". I played by myself. I would stand in the yard and kick off my shoe to see how high it would go. One time I did it too well. My shoe went really high and landed on the roof of the porch. My Daddy had to go out on the roof through the window and get my shoe back. I wasn't allowed to play "Shoe Kick" after that.

Now I am not a little girl any more. I am a pretty old Grandma. But guess what my favorite place is in the spring, summer and fall? I don't have a front porch, but I have a wonderful deck on the side of my house, and that is my favorite place. I like to sit on my reclining chair and read a book, or visit with my friends. I wish my family all lived near me so they could sit there with me.

Thanks to Mae for these pictures from her Blog. You can see the front porch very clearly on the left side of the house.