When I was growing up, front porches weren't simply a design feature of a home.  From these slightly elevated platforms, parents watched as neighborhood children played, visited with neighbors over iced tea or lemonade or a even a cold brewskie, and served as the "Neighborhood Watch Enforcers."

Everyone knew his neighbor.  "Who you looking for?" one neighbor would shout out when a "stranger" came knocking  on the door of a neighbor who wasn't home, then force the stranger into leaving a message with the protective nosy neighbor who had a clear view of every home in the neighborhood.

Front porches had open front doors with guarding screen doors designed to keep out flies and insects.  Walking home from school, every child in the neighborhood knew what each other was having for dinner, simply by the aroma coming out the front door and wafting across the front porch and out to the sidewalk.

This place on the website then, my official forum, is appropriately named "The Front Porch" because it's a place we can gather to talk, share ideas, swap recipes, and generally be those good-kind of nosy neighbors who look out for one another.  Now...set yo'sef down, and enjoy!

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excerps taken from When Our Homes Had Porches by Rev. Wayne Perryman