THE VANISHING FRONT PORCH by Pam North There was a time they were everywhere - but not anymore. Drive into the older residential sections of almost any nearby town, and you'll see them. Front porches - they're a vanishing breed. They were an integral architectural element of nearly every home of any substance from the 1800s to the mid 1900s, but after that they just about disappeared, and along with them went a special social lifestyle. After dinner and on weekends, families would gather on their front porches to relax. There were no televisions then; family members talked to each other and played games. The front porch was also a safe and comfortable place for a young couple to pursue the rites of courtship. People walked a lot more in those days, and those who ventured out for a neighborhood stroll would often take the time to exchange pleasantries and conversations with the porch inhabitants encountered along the way. Porch-perchers could sit and take it easy, and let the world come to their door. The latest gossip could be traded, and friendships made and strengthened. The front porch, often tree-shaded, was usually the coolest place to be in the heat of the summer (back before air conditioning arrived to insulate and isolate people in climate-controlled comfort). Porches were usually large and accomodating spaces where people could spread out. They were good for morning visiting while mothers and grandmothers snapped beans or did a bit of mending, and later it was a place for women to escape to while dinner simmered on the old wood cookstove (heating up the kitchen as well as the meal). In the afternoons and evenings, when bedrooms grew too warm for comfortable naps and night slumbers, snoozes could be be taken out on the porch, where breezes softly blew and rain pattered down soothingly just past the railings. The front porch was where a father could bring a big watermelon, and cut generous slices to distribute to family members and friends. The children, often still in bathing suits from recent swims and water fights, would sit munching the succulent melon with juice running down their chins, joyfully competing to see who could spit the seeds the farthest (knowledgeable adults had wisely seated themselves out of the line of fire). After the rinds had been collected to make preserves (or fed to the chickens out back), a quick cleanup for a messy porch and sticky kids was only as far away as the garden hose. Many a bucket of home-made ice cream also has been cranked on the front porch. Before electricity brought illumination to the streets and housefronts, often only a single kerosene lamp would be burning inside the home after dark, and without the interference of artificial light, there was no competition with the glow of the moon and stars. The wonder of the night and the spectacle of the universe could be viewed from the front steps. Children put to bed in rooms near the porch could often hear the voices of the adults drifting through the windows, and would fall asleep listening to family reminisces. The front porch was eventually replaced by the backyard patio hiding behind tall wood fences. Residences began to be built in even closer proximity to each other in modern subdivisions, and as people had less space between themselves and their neighbors, they grew more cloistered. America became obsessed with privacy. The advent of television coincided with the change; entertainment within the confines of the home tended to keep people inside, and, no longer bored and required to find their own diversions, they felt less motivation to sit outside to observe and interact with their neighbors. Change is inevitable, and it brings both good and bad. Technology, comfort and lifestyles have evolved in many ways for the better, but something has been lost in the process - the front porch. For those old enough to remember it, it's something they miss; for those too young to have experienced it, it's their loss.