Drive through an older neighborhood residental neighborhood, preferably one with single family homes built before the Second World War. On the front of nearly every house, you will see a porch. The porch may not be the veranda at Tara, but it will quite often be large enough that the house's residents can put out a porch swing or some wicker chairs, maybe some plants and a wrought iron table. Now, drive through a newer neighborhood. Barring custom built homes, you will likely see few if any porches. Entry into the house is usually gained from a small stoop or a couple of steps. Where did all the porches go? Why, to the BACK of the house, of course! The porch has been rechristened "the deck" and folks put their patio furniture, plants and wrought iron tables and such on those.
The front porch seems such a happy invention. It conjures up images of Mrs Jones standing on the top step and speaking to the letter carrier, teenaged couples in poodle skirts and letter sweaters rocking slightly as the sun goes down, and smiling graduates in caps and gowns waiting for their pictures to carry them forever into a moment of family lore. Decks are probably happy inventions for many people; personally, I could take em or leave 'em. I suppose it is more seemly to barbeque on the back deck than it would be on a front porch. The deck is more private, I will admit. I'd have to say that most of them look rather uninspired, though. They tend to be made of wood, and seem almost an afterthought. One may have a white colonial style, or a spit level, a ranch, but the decks tend to be plain old wood, sometimes stained to look like redwood. They are generally simple and unadorned, and where aesthetics are concerned, I have seen few decks that enhance the appearance of the houses they often seem slapped up against.
So why a backyard deck, instead of a front porch? What prompted the move change of the outdoor living space from a frontward looking one to a rearward one? I think it has a lot to do with more interest in our private lives. Once upon a time, neighbors often relied on each other, they knew each other, they chatted about the weather or what fertilizer to use on the yard, and brought food to each other when there was a death in a family. My grandmother could drive past a house she lived in 30 or more years in the past, and tell who lived in each of the surrounding houses back then, what they were like, some anecdote about them. I've lived in the same residence now for over two years, and I've never even met some of the neighbors who lived in their homes before I moved here. I don't think the neighbors care to meet me any more than I do them. I see few of my neighbors talking to each other, except for the kids playing or hanging out with each other; presumably, they know each other from school, where familiarity is more likely to breed. I think people today are less trusting of other people, and there are far more outlets for socialization today than ever before.
Perhaps it is a generational thing, to some extent. I do a lot of walking, for fitness sakes, and there are many nice streets in my part of town to walk down. I see older people working in their yards, and older people seem to talk to their neighbors more. I rarely see younger homeowners out talking to their neighbors. If I pass someone on the street, younger people don't wave, nod, or say hello, nor do I do so. However, when I pass an older person, they almost always wave, nod or say hello; when they do I do so in return. But I rarely initiate the greeting.
In the end, I'd much rather live in a house with a front porch. I may not use it all that frequently, but just knowing it is there makes it seem an asset. Perhaps if I had a porch, I'd be more inclined to chat with the letter carrier and my neighbors.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Starting Randomly: Men in my Family, And Their Garages
I am quite a random thinker, and my inaugural statement will reflect this personality trait. I wanted to talk about the fact that none of my male ancestors (at least the ones I knew personally!) used their garages for what I think most people use them for: storing the car. This will mean my piece on the demise of the porch in America will have to wait.
I'll go back to my oldest childhood memories. In my suburban neighborhood, which I think was much like any neighborhood in the late 1970s, men and women came merrily home from work (some more merrily than others, no doubt), turned in their drives, pushed magic buttons on little remote control gadgets that opened garage doors, and pulled their gigantic cars into clean garages. Cue kids running out to greet Mommy and Daddy, getting hugged, being handed sacks of groceries and other "Welcome Home" activities. Everyone would head inside, and the last one in would push a button, closing the garage door on the happy scene, and presumably, family life would continue its regular course of evening rituals. Not at my house.
No, the evening scene was much different. My father would pull his pick-up truck into the drive, parking next to my mother's Oldsmobile, and from that position the other rituals would proceed as elsewhere. Why the difference at my house? Vehicles, except in very VERY special winter weather conditions, did not go in the garage. Our garage was for storing my father's carpentry tools, as well as junk my parents did not wish to deal with. Oh, and at one point, it housed a chicken and periodically a cat or two. But I digress.
My father welded in the garage. He cut wood propped on saw horses with a hand-held electric saw in the garage. He painted things in the garage. He disposed of things he didn't want in the house but couldn't bear to part with in the garage. He swore up torrents of curse-words like a foul-mouthed wizard reciting spells in the garage. But he didn't park the vehicles in the garage.
My father also had a shed behind the house, one he built himself. I don't mean just a garden shed, I mean a building composed of left-over construction materials that was the size of a small bungalow. One end had doors so large that they took up nearly that whole side of the building, for driving up to and loading the truck. The shed was an odd, ugly building, full of the same kinds of junk that were in the garage. I think the idea was, when he built it, perhaps a compromise so that my mother might one day know the joys of parking her car in the garage. If this was the case, her desire was never fulfilled. The garage was full til the day we left that house.
If you are wondering where my father got this interesting idiosyncrasy, one need look no further than his father. Grandpa's house was, like ours, of owner design. It had a one car garage, which was convenient, as I never remember my grandparents having more than one car. Others in their neighborhood, as in my own, parked their cars in their garages. But not at Grandpa's house. You'll never guess what was in the garage! Well, you probably already have: tools and stuff my grandfather couldn't bear to part with. Grandpa built canoes in the the garage. Grandpa had a custom-made mailbox that caught mail from a mail slot on the side of the house in the garage. Grandpa kept his lines, lures and tackle in the garage. But he didn't park vehicles in the garage. It never bothered Grandma, I guess, as I never heard her complain. Likely, though, when she got up to go to work (she was a school teacher, later a Junior High Dean of Girls and then a high school guidance counselor) on bitter-cold Ozarks mornings, she'd have loved a car that wasn't icy cold and covered with snow.
When I was nine, after my mother passed away, my father and I moved to my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle had a two car garage. By now, you'll know what wasn't kept in the garage: the cars. The Toyota and Chevy station wagon were kept in the drive. My uncle kept and used his power tools in the garage. My uncle kept the freezer and his home-canned food in the garage. He kept bikes and old coolers and junk he couldn't bear to part with in the garage. But he didn't park the vehicles in the garage.
When my father remarried, must I say that his wife's car was no longer kept in the garage, as had been her custom? My father's stuff replaced her car as the garage's sole tenant. I don't think my stepmother ever fully took to this arrangement, but as long as they lived in THAT house, the garage was used for powertools and things my father, and eventually the whole family, could not bear to part with but did not want in the house.
Other people in my family had garages in which cars were kept. My mother's mother lived next door to us, and kept HER car in a garage kept so neat you could eat off the floor of it. About the only time her car wasn't in the garage was when she was having one of her periodic-and much loved-garage sales. But that was only a day or two, and in fair weather to boot. Great Aunt Anne, who lived down the street, had a garage in much the state my grandmother did, neat and with cars kept in it. My mother's cousins, whom we visited quite often, kept their cars in the garage. Great Aunt Goldie in Wheatland kept her car in a rattle-trap old garage with wasp nests in it and old spoons and other metal things hanging by strings from the rafters to scare off birds from nesting in it. Great Aunt Oryene in Weaubleau kept her car in the carport--almost a garage, but they had no conventional garage.
The apple falls not far from the tree. The car at my present residence is not kept in the garage unless it is bitterly cold or snowy weather; it is full of things I cannot bear to part with but don't keep in the house.
I'll go back to my oldest childhood memories. In my suburban neighborhood, which I think was much like any neighborhood in the late 1970s, men and women came merrily home from work (some more merrily than others, no doubt), turned in their drives, pushed magic buttons on little remote control gadgets that opened garage doors, and pulled their gigantic cars into clean garages. Cue kids running out to greet Mommy and Daddy, getting hugged, being handed sacks of groceries and other "Welcome Home" activities. Everyone would head inside, and the last one in would push a button, closing the garage door on the happy scene, and presumably, family life would continue its regular course of evening rituals. Not at my house.
No, the evening scene was much different. My father would pull his pick-up truck into the drive, parking next to my mother's Oldsmobile, and from that position the other rituals would proceed as elsewhere. Why the difference at my house? Vehicles, except in very VERY special winter weather conditions, did not go in the garage. Our garage was for storing my father's carpentry tools, as well as junk my parents did not wish to deal with. Oh, and at one point, it housed a chicken and periodically a cat or two. But I digress.
My father welded in the garage. He cut wood propped on saw horses with a hand-held electric saw in the garage. He painted things in the garage. He disposed of things he didn't want in the house but couldn't bear to part with in the garage. He swore up torrents of curse-words like a foul-mouthed wizard reciting spells in the garage. But he didn't park the vehicles in the garage.
My father also had a shed behind the house, one he built himself. I don't mean just a garden shed, I mean a building composed of left-over construction materials that was the size of a small bungalow. One end had doors so large that they took up nearly that whole side of the building, for driving up to and loading the truck. The shed was an odd, ugly building, full of the same kinds of junk that were in the garage. I think the idea was, when he built it, perhaps a compromise so that my mother might one day know the joys of parking her car in the garage. If this was the case, her desire was never fulfilled. The garage was full til the day we left that house.
If you are wondering where my father got this interesting idiosyncrasy, one need look no further than his father. Grandpa's house was, like ours, of owner design. It had a one car garage, which was convenient, as I never remember my grandparents having more than one car. Others in their neighborhood, as in my own, parked their cars in their garages. But not at Grandpa's house. You'll never guess what was in the garage! Well, you probably already have: tools and stuff my grandfather couldn't bear to part with. Grandpa built canoes in the the garage. Grandpa had a custom-made mailbox that caught mail from a mail slot on the side of the house in the garage. Grandpa kept his lines, lures and tackle in the garage. But he didn't park vehicles in the garage. It never bothered Grandma, I guess, as I never heard her complain. Likely, though, when she got up to go to work (she was a school teacher, later a Junior High Dean of Girls and then a high school guidance counselor) on bitter-cold Ozarks mornings, she'd have loved a car that wasn't icy cold and covered with snow.
When I was nine, after my mother passed away, my father and I moved to my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle had a two car garage. By now, you'll know what wasn't kept in the garage: the cars. The Toyota and Chevy station wagon were kept in the drive. My uncle kept and used his power tools in the garage. My uncle kept the freezer and his home-canned food in the garage. He kept bikes and old coolers and junk he couldn't bear to part with in the garage. But he didn't park the vehicles in the garage.
When my father remarried, must I say that his wife's car was no longer kept in the garage, as had been her custom? My father's stuff replaced her car as the garage's sole tenant. I don't think my stepmother ever fully took to this arrangement, but as long as they lived in THAT house, the garage was used for powertools and things my father, and eventually the whole family, could not bear to part with but did not want in the house.
Other people in my family had garages in which cars were kept. My mother's mother lived next door to us, and kept HER car in a garage kept so neat you could eat off the floor of it. About the only time her car wasn't in the garage was when she was having one of her periodic-and much loved-garage sales. But that was only a day or two, and in fair weather to boot. Great Aunt Anne, who lived down the street, had a garage in much the state my grandmother did, neat and with cars kept in it. My mother's cousins, whom we visited quite often, kept their cars in the garage. Great Aunt Goldie in Wheatland kept her car in a rattle-trap old garage with wasp nests in it and old spoons and other metal things hanging by strings from the rafters to scare off birds from nesting in it. Great Aunt Oryene in Weaubleau kept her car in the carport--almost a garage, but they had no conventional garage.
The apple falls not far from the tree. The car at my present residence is not kept in the garage unless it is bitterly cold or snowy weather; it is full of things I cannot bear to part with but don't keep in the house.
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