Front Porches and Summer Nights
Finding a sense of community
I remember lying in bed on warm, summer nights, falling asleep to the murmur of the voices of the adults sitting on the front porch.
Sometimes, I would listen to snippets of conversations. Talk of the ongoing Vietnam War, of the Red Sox and the Yankees, of the high school kids who refused to get haircuts.
My dad and his brother playing cribbage, progressing pegs along the board: “fifteen-two, fifteen-four . . . “
My mom empathizing with the next door neighbor, whose elderly mother was failing.
The adults in the neighborhood gathered on front porches on summer nights. There was a sense of community, of shared concern for the events of life.
Today, I rarely hear voices from front porches. Everyone is indoors.
“No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn’t want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn’t look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting…
