My Front Porch

     There was a spot that was so special to me when I was a child. It was our front porch. It wasn’t very big, although as a child it seemed big, as most things do when you’re small. It was a concrete rectangle in front of our front door. Three steps lead to the walk that made a curvy path to the sidewalk and parking in front of our house. (Parking is a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb next to the street. Most new neighborhoods don’t have parking anymore.) Our porch had no handrail. I could sit and dangle my leg(s) over the side. The porch faced west so in the morning the concrete was cool. In the afternoon, it was warm. My mother planted flowers that created beautiful curb appeal.

     I spent a lot of my childhood on that porch. Just sitting with friends, talking. Waiting alone, on a warm summer evening, for friends to finish eating dinner so we could play Kick the Can or Hide and Seek or Swing the Statue or Mother May I or Red Light/Green Light or Simon Says. Sometimes we’d jump rope or draw a hopscotch pattern with chalk on the front sidewalk and play hopscotch for hours. We roller-skated, rode bikes or went up to the elementary school and played on the swings or monkey bars.

     One of my favorite memories was getting a new book of paper dolls. I’d play with paper dolls on the front porch for days. A book consisted of a paper doll, sometimes two, that were printed on card stock. They had perforated edges so you could punch or cut the dolls out. There was usually another piece that would allow the doll to “stand” alone. The pieces fit together and formed an X configuration. Also in the book were several pages of high fashion clothes for the dolls; dresses and swimsuits and pant outfits, fur coats and hats and jackets. All the clothes had to be cut out with scissors and there were usually tabs, that when folded down, held the clothes to the paper doll. It was so much fun to dress up your doll and play-pretend she was going to a party or on a romantic date with her best boyfriend.

     When the dresses got torn accidentally (they were just paper, after all), scotch tape came to the rescue. We made different outfits by placing  the doll on a piece of blank paper and drawing around her body. Then you could create a new dress that would “fit” beautifully. We decorated the dresses with crayons. If you preferred a different effect, you could put your creation between two pieces of waxed paper, then using a low-temperature iron, melt the crayon to the paper. The effect was fantastic, at least I thought it was.

     We listened to the radio a lot back then. We’d plug it in and stretch the cord hoping to put the radio as close to the front door as possible so we could hear it through the screen door. There were soap operas and variety shows and game shows to listen to. And, of course, programs that played popular music we would sing along with. The front porch was like having an outdoor room to play in. The radio provided the soundtrack to the stories we created for our paper doll’s lives. At the end of the day, we’d pack up and put everything in an old shoebox, ready for the next days’ play.

     In the fall, when the days started getting shorter, we switched to playing jacks. The best jacks were heavy and thicker, they had weight. At times I played with a golf ball, other times a solid rubber ball. We had tournaments both on that front porch and at school. And though there was no prize, no trophy for winning, just the knowledge that you beat all challengers was propitious. The concrete was perfect! It was an amazing place to practice. Smooth, cool and just the right size to sit and dangle one leg over the side as we played. 

     That porch was a great place to watch the world go by. Neighbors out for an evening walk would stop to chat. Our neighborhood friends would gather and sit and talk for hours. It was a place to hang out, to play, to dream. Once friends and I wrote a neighborhood newspaper on that porch, complete with funny papers. I learned to trace, then draw, Snoopy and Little Lulu, Archie and Jughead on the porch. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drank Kool-aid picnic-style on that porch. I cooled off eating popsicles and fudgesicles on hot summer days on that porch. It was just a perfect place to be.