CityView Magazine

16 | May/June • 2014 By Mary Zahran on second thought I recall spending countless hours watching fireflies twinkle in the night sky, clutching my Mason jar as I debated whether to attempt to catch any. Even as a small child, I considered it a crime to capture a thing of such fleeting beauty. Could any of these memories have been created inside my house? I don't think so. When I consider how so many chil- dren are growing up now, how they spend their days in her- metically sealed houses gazing at televisions or computers or smart phones, I think of all that awaits them just outside their doors. ey don't know what a summer storm smells like or how breathing in the air on a cold, crisp winter day can cause your eyes to water and your chest to tingle. ey also don't get to know their neighbors because everyone spends so much time indoors. Almost all of our neighbors spent a lot of time on their porches. ey shelled butter beans, rocked babies to sleep, made ice cream, or just chatted with the people next door. As they performed these ordinary tasks, they created a strong sense of community. In the days before citizens formed Neighborhood Watch- es, we had Mrs. Baker, who would happily report us to our parents for the slightest misbehavior. If Billy ran into the street or threw a baseball and broke a window, you could bet that Mrs. Baker would be on the phone telling his parents all about it before Billy even got home. And heaven help the teen- ager who tried to sneak out at night. No maximum security prison anywhere had a better guard. As much as we might have resented the intrusion of nosy neighbors, they performed a valuable service—they kept us safe. A person sitting on a front porch hoping to catch a child misbehaving was also a person observing everything else that was going on, including the appearance of strange cars or stray animals. As I grew older, I discovered that the porch was the perfect place for all kinds of activities—for reading a book or listen- ing for the ice cream truck on a hot summer aernoon. Some- times my sisters and I would prop the radio in the window and wait for our favorite songs to play, which they invariably did if we listened long enough. Decades before the inven- tion of the iPod, we had figured out how to make our music portable. As a teenager, I discovered that the front porch was the best place to position myself to watch for boys in cars. ere was nothing more exciting than looking down the street to see W hen I describe my childhood to others, I usually say that I was raised in Rocky Mount, North Carolina…but that I grew up on a front porch. When I was a little girl, nearly every house had a front porch, where people spent a significant portion of their day. Only hurricane-force winds or bitter cold kept them inside. Front porches allowed neighbors to socialize without ever leaving the comfort of their homes. ey could keep an eye on the neighborhood and watch the world go by all from a single vantage point. My earliest memories of life on a porch stretch all the way back to my toddler years. I remember sitting on my father's lap, freshly bathed and ready for bed, listening to the hum of cicadas in the heavy summer air. I remember sitting on the porch during a rainstorm, watching the water as it poured off the roof and smelling the musky aroma of damp earth. The Home Front

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