“Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch and playing my harmonica.” Abe Lincoln
The front porch …
The first room of the house.
A home’s first impression.
A proud place for your flag.
The cocktail start to my parents’ dinner parties. (Bourbon and pimiento cheese spread.)
Where my newspaper lands (sometimes).
Where I slept on sweltering summer nights.
Where you drip-dry after a morning sled ride.
A place to greet your neighbors.
Where the porch swing awaits.
Where I sobbed over a dead baby bird.
Festival of Trees gets it. They get the importance of a welcoming porch, whether it’s on an antebellum house or a rustic cabin. A porch hugs you and invites you to sit a spell.
Photo provided by The Cultural Trust
This year’s festival has a new entry along with trees, wreaths and fireplaces. It’s the porch entry (double meaning intended). Porches are enjoying a resurgence in American home architecture. After COVID, families have moved from the backyard to the front porch in search of the sweet-tea-sipping camaraderie of their ancestors. We want a cozy visit.
My first house, a tiny brick Cape Cod, had the coziest screened-in side-porch with AstroTurf carpet on the floor and ivy growing up the outsides of the screens. It was such a luxury to bring my Quad City Times and steaming mug of coffee out to the porch table to sit, read, listen and immerse in solitude. Those days are gone but I crave them, still.
I crave opening The Times.
I miss the ink on my fingers.
I miss the newspaper smell.
I want to read a newspaper not a virtual version.
Maybe the newspaper will have a resurgence like our porches. Maybe.
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