Simoneaux: Porches build better neighbors and neighborhoods

Published 1:30 am Monday, April 9, 2018

By Larry Simoneaux

Just now, I’m in New Orleans, sitting on a shady porch, and enjoying the morning.

It’s a little after 9, and the temperature is hovering around 75 degrees. There’s also a nice breeze blowing from the southeast with a few clouds passing overhead.

I have a second cup of coffee on a small table next to me, some purple martins flitting nearby, and I’m studiously directing all of my effort towards simply passing some time peacefully. This while trying to understand — with very little luck — why porches have, seemingly, lost favor with home builders.

I’ve been out here for more than an hour and, already, several people have walked by and offered a pleasant “Good morning.” One — I hesitate for obvious reasons to use the term “older” — gentleman named Harry even stopped to chat for a while.

Harry lives nearby and had seen me sitting out here more than a few times over the past two weeks and was curious enough to stop by today.

We got into a conversation about my wife and I having left New Orleans back in the early 1970s and eventually settling (compliments of Uncle Sam) in the Seattle area more than 30 years ago. Now, though, with the kids gone to the far corners of both the United States and the world, I mentioned that we’ve been considering the idea of returning to the place where we’d both been raised. Hence, our presence for the next few weeks.

By this time, I’d also offered him a cup of coffee and a porch chair and we began a back and forth on where we might look for a home, what the prices might be, which areas had flooded, where were the good restaurants nearby (this is New Orleans, a place where food is a religion unto itself), and just how hot the summer might be.

We went on like this for a while and, after about 20 minutes, he got up and said he’d stop by again if he saw me outside.

As an aside, one might wonder where “passing time” with someone on a quiet morning disappeared to. With the very necessary follow-on question being: And how do we get it back?

Which brings us back to porches.

We’re seeing a real estate agent a little later today and, one of the things my wife and I have agreed upon — should we decide to make the move and buy down here — is that whatever home we may purchase in whatever area of the city, that home will have a porch.

I’ve written about porches before and my opinion as regards them firmly remains something along the lines of “we need more of them.” Many more. This because porches beget chairs (rockers, usually) and the occasional swing, and both seem to have a natural air of invitation about them that beckons people to just stop by, sit down, and visit.

Decks (poor cousins to porches) are different. No matter how beautiful or well-laid-out, they’re usually hidden away behind a home in yards that are surrounded by fences. They’re fine for what they are, but it’s hard to see a deck from the sidewalk and, thus, aren’t naturally inviting, even if you’re outside relaxing on them.

Porches seem to just naturally draw people together, and people who’ve been drawn together quickly become something more than neighbors. They become something akin to an extended family. And that’s when (and how) great neighborhoods come into being.

I grew up in such a neighborhood. A place where there was no need for a “neighborhood watch” as, on most any day, you’d always see someone outside reading a newspaper, watching the kids, taking a break from whatever they were doing, or just simply relaxing after a day’s work. It’s hard for someone to cause problems in a place like that.

And before you mention the subject of my slow — but obvious and ever quickening — drift into “geezerdom” and start wondering when I’ll be purchasing my “Stay Off The Lawn” sign, allow me to make the following offer.

Should my wife and I end up in New Orleans, our porch will always be open for refreshments, good conversation, and the chance to pass some time without the fuss and bother of what passes for “normal” these days.

Porches.

I just happen to think we need them more than we know.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to: larrysim@comcast.net.