Porches -- Aren't We Lucky to Have So Many

On this past July 4th, the Knoxville News Sentinel ran this following story.  It says so much about what we have that I just had to reprint the article here.  The author was not listed, so I cannot give him/her credit and I hope the Sentinel will not arrest me for stealing their story.

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The dictionary says a porch is "a covered entrance to a building, usually with a separate roof." 

But whoever penned such a description must have never enjoyed a lazy, hazy Sunday afternoon from grandmother's front porch. Because such a description doesn't give a porch any credit at all. 

A porch isn't a deck, and it isn't a stoop. People who have stoops may wish those smaller spaces could magically grow into a wide porch. And they sometimes treat them like porches, adding a rocking chair and potted plants to the space. And people who have decks sometimes end up putting a roof over the decks and turning them into open porches or even screened porches. 

A porch is a place for a swing with a flattened pillow for your head or for your behind. Add a few comfortable chairs, a small table for a plant, drinks or magazines and even a glider, and that porch becomes an extended room in the outdoors. A set or two of wind chimes and you have natural music. Bring out the portable telephone and you won't have to worry about missing anything. 

A porch's railings make the perfect place to collect rocks, plants and jars for lightning bugs.  Its eaves and hanging baskets are a place for birds' nests, and its front steps invite a parade of potted plants along their sides. 

A porch's corners are great places for children to pitch tents from old bedspreads and blankets from the hall closet without worrying about getting underfoot in the house or having their tent flooded in a sudden summer storm. 

A porch is a place to watch the world go by, not worrying if you need to get up and join it. It's a place to gather and talk on a Sunday afternoon after a chicken and dumpling dinner at grandmother's or late in the evening with the neighbors after the dishes are done, watching the children play flashlight tag. 

Everyone gets lazier and everything gets a little slower on a front porch. Iced tea, with lots of sugar, goes well with a porch. So does a good homegrown tomato sandwich. So does a good book borrowed from the library. 

Pretty useful thing for just "a covered entrance." 

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We recently had friends from England visit us and with all that our area has to offer, Robert's very favorite thing to do was sit on our front porch swing, read and wave to neighbors.  Don't you pity those poor folks in West Knoxville in their $300,000 homes with no porches?

Note from webmaster:  One of the houses featured in the photographs accompanying the July 4, 2000 KNS article about front porches was the 11th Street Expresso House in the Fort Sanders neighborhood.  According to the Worsham/Watkins plan for downtown, this is one of the seven houses slated to be "removed" from the neighborhood, along with the Fort Kid playground and all the surrounding trees, in order to build 88 condominums (click here to see an artist's rendition).  On August 18, the KNS wrote an editorial opposing this part of the plan (click here to read this).  Please contact the Public Building Authority at Downtown@ktnpba.org and members of City Council to express your view on this controversial element of the downtown redevelopment plan.

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