Story Weekend Theme: Porches
Either you have a porch or you wish you had a porch. It’s true, isn’t it? (Or if it isn’t, I bet there’s a story there too). I’m lucky enough to have a screened porch for the first time in my adult life, and oh, how I love working out there. I’d love to know your porch story, so I hope you’ll share it here.
If you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. I’ve loved reading your (very short!) stories. As always, there are a few “rules”:
- The story must be true.
- Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge.
- Avoid offensive language.
As usual, I’ll start it off with my own story.
The storm had left the concrete floor of our summer house wet and we felt the cool dampness beneath our bare feet. My little brother suddenly grabbed a floor lamp and started jerking it around. ‘Let go of that!’ my mother said sharply. ‘I can’t!’ he shouted, and Mom realized he was being electrocuted. She jumped into her rubber flipflops, pulled the plug and grabbed him to her in a hug, acting as though she saved a life every day.
Love this porch story Diane. Aren’t mothers wonderful at saving lives? I loved being the hero in my children’s many scrapes and love, even more, being the hero in my grandchildren’s adventures!
When I smell fresh cut grass and a rain storm coming in on a summer’s night, I remember grandma’s sleeping porch. My brother and I held slumber parties with our cousins. We told stories, shared secrets, and laughed until late in the night. One of those fun filled nights a storm blew in and lightning crashed. Huddled together we saw a lightning bolt split a huge tree across the street. We screamed and retreated to a safer living room floor.
Every summer my Gramma bought a cheap new tented cover for her back porch. I always wanted to buy her a sturdy one that lasted through the seasons. Our last visit together on her brown fading deck had me wishing I’d put make-up on before snapping candids. Now the tent is gone, as is my Gramma. When I look at those pictures with my bed head and pjs, all I see is the affection my Gramma carried for me written all over her beautiful, carefree face.
Listening to the sounds of summer eves brings back memories of times shared with my little sister on the wrap around porch of our childhood home. I recall one evening in particular when we stayed up all night soothing and feeding a litter of discarded kittens my sister had rescued earlier that day from the trash can of an elderly neighbor. Happily, one of the kittens survived and she grew into an elegant cat with a beautiful black coat. Admired by many passerbys, Shadow proudly sat upon our porch rail keeping us company throughout the rest of our childhood years.
I remember Shadow. love this memory, JoAnne.
I always wanted a porch. A wrap around porch with a swing or a rocking chair. I figured that if I had a big wrap around porch with white posts and white railing around good things would happen. Maybe adironack chairs in bright colours. Men would come courting me, or children would gather on the porch with me and listen to me tell them stories. Neighbors would bring their homemade pies and we would share them – accompanied by tall glasses of unsweet iced tea. Alas I never had one – perhaps I was meant to live in the South. however I don’t live in the South, don’t have a swing, don’t have a porch but I am happy nonetheless. Perhaps the real secret is the smile.
Unlike many of the houses on our street, we had a huge screened in back porch. Tammy, our cat sat out there and watched the world go by, he was too afraid to actually venture out. I sat there with him as a child, but as I grew through adolescence and into an adult, it became a place to be avoided, the place my parents fought and the neighbors heard it all. The last thing I remember doing on that porch was having a “meet the in-laws” barbecue and then, unlike Tammy, I fledged never to return, never to have a screened porch again.
These are some wonderful stories. I do not have a porch and really never lived anywhere that we had a nice porch. My porch exsists in my mind. It has screens for summer and sturdy windows for winter. It is probably more of an all season room so that I can enjoy sitting and reading; drinking a damn fine cup of coffee or sipping a big glass full of Sweet tea. I could watch nature and people as they come and go. It would be a great place for conversation or just sitting together quietly enjoying each others company.
For two weeks every summer we holed up in the enclosed front porch of my grandmother’s old farmhouse. It housed a day bed complete with scratchy woollen blanket and hundreds and hundreds of Harlequin Romance books circa 19 something or other.lol. About age ten on rainy Saturdays I would sneak off to the porch to read the forbidden fruit of those books that my mother thought I was too young to understand. My grandmother being the saint that she was, smuggled me mugs of baker’s cocoa hot chocolate and locked me in for the day and would tell my mother she had lost the key. I am sure I learned to love to read there and that there is complicity in love between a young girl and an older girl( my grandma) who was still young at heart. When have any of us surrendered to a book without knowing there was something else we were supposed to be doing. Youth is wasted on the young:}
I grew up in a house with 2 back porches. One small porch was off of the kitchen and we used it when we pinned just washed clothes to the pulley clothesline. I loved doing that. The other was a large porch off of the living room. On it was a metal glider and chairs and an awning so we could sit there and not get wet when it rained. The roof over that porch was under my bedroom window and on hot nights I would crawl out of my window and sit in the cool night air. I loved it.
Ours is actually a deck, but we call it a porch. And my favorite thing about is being able to go out and look at the lake, see what’s going on and sitting to just enjoy being outside. My favorite time is early in the morning, right before sunrise and listen to the fish jump or the ducks quacking at each other.
I just got back from my favorite porch. It’s in NH and it’s the Mountain View Grand Hotel. There were two weddings there today and what a place for photos! The temperature was perfect and you can see 56 mountain peaks from the porch. Had coffee on the porch with my 89 year old Mom. Kodak Moment kind of day.
My favorite porch as a child was the one at the Stiltsville house. Stiltsville was a neighborhood of 13 or so houses in the middle of Biscayne Bay off the coast of Miami, accessible only by boat. The houses were perched on stilts in the flats at the edge of the channel, like waterbirds on long legs.
We always went with other families in tow and at night, I would hang out in the sea breeze on the wrap-around upstairs porch with my brother and the other kids and tell silly or spooky stories. My favorite memories are of sitting on my dad’s lap with my head resting on his chest as we looked out over the railing at the skyline of Miami. He sang softly in my one ear while the other was filled with the sound of his steady heartbeat as I drifted off to sleep.
Oh porches…they have been a part of my whole life, I have such fond memories of those porches all different in their own respect. The first was on the front of my Grandmothers home we would get the record player out and dance and sing out there, then there was the sleeping porch at the Michigan summer cottage or so it turned out to be whenever there too many adults and not enough beds the kids were sent to the porch it was scary, the noises of the night animals and when it rained you’d have to jump up and close the big windows, Oh what I’d give to have that again!! then there was the screened porch on the home my ex and I built I would go sit out there late at night if I couldn’t sleep and listen to the crickets it was so peaceful. Then the last home I owned my grandson and I would sit out there and watch and listen to the Thunderstorms. Now I’m building a new home with a front porch and a sun room, I look forward to many fond memories on these porches! I can’t imagine my life without a porch
All the houses I have lived in had some kind of porch. The one I live in now has a tiny front porch and a small deck in back. I love to sweep them and decorate them with flowers in summer and pumpkins in the fall. The farmhouse I grew up in had a screened in porch and my mother and I often slept out there in the summer. She would sleep there until there was snow on the ground! Perhaps why she lived to the age of 94. I love porches and hope I’ll always have one.
The little ‘wishbone’ scar above my lip is a gentle reminder of times spent on the screened porch. Wonderful dinners every nite with mom, dad and sister during the nice 3 seasons…winters, of course, were way to harsh to spend out there. Playing all day with friends & my sister…and then out of the blue, a loud screem as I fall flat on the concrete from skipping rope…front teeth cut through my skin above the lip. Doctors patch me up & I’m fine, and back to skipping rope on the porch.
I have many memories of Porches..these can tell the story of my life. My Granny’s porch was where we slept at night in the summer. Without air conditioning in the summer in Texas, this is the best place to sleep. At the Lake House, it is a perfect place to have that first cup of coffee of the morning. Remembering sharing it with my mom and dad while the kids were still sleeping. Listening to the birds that my dad would name one by one. I miss my Dad and those early morning visits. In 1994, my husband and children bought a porch swing for my Mother’s Day gift. Now I sit and swing with my grandchildren or visit with friends and neighbors. I’d say that Porches are a great place to share your life with friends and family.
I’ve had porches in my life, all of my life. I suppose growing up in the South, it’s bound to happen. As a child I would dance around on my Granny’s front porch and sing to the top of my lungs every song that I could remember the words to, never mind the tune. I especially loved doing this as a summer rain would fall softly onto the warm earth or thunder would roll and wind would stir the boxwoods’ fragrant scent across the air. As a young, single mother, I had a very small front porch, but it had a swing. I spent hours at a time swinging my newborn baby girl, singing my favorite gospel songs to her to sooth her to sleep and to sooth my lonliness. I now have a very fine porch, where I sit overlooking my dad’s land where he labored many years to build him a farm. It was a labor of love. I also can see off in the distance the soft blue of Eastern mountains and sometimes see the snow that covers them like lace. My very favorite thing to do on this porch is sit and swing with my grandchildren and yes, sing to them. We also share special delight in watching and listening to the flocks of geese as they pass overhead honking their encouragement to one another passing by on their way north or south according to the seasons. I hope my grandchildren will remember swinging with me, as they sing to their own children some well loved tune from their own fairy tale memories.
I grew up in Lake Wales, Fl where we lived in a frame house with a front screened porch. It had a swing. I so enjoyed sitting in the swing and watching people walk
by the house on their weay to work. Of course, we never kept our doors locked
and any of our neighbors were always welcome….many great memories….
In my new home I moved into a year ago we now have a “porch” or what we call a Florida room. I LOVE to sit out there and read … we have no TV out there just alot of windows (perfect lighting) air conditioning for those 90 degree, humid days and a big comfy sofa and chair I sit on, I love it out there. I sit with my puppy Bella and we read and read. Well, I read, she just watches me as I stroke the softest ears I have ever felt in my life. I wouldn’t give that room up for anything in the world … it is so peaceful and quiet out there.
When Daddy bought the house on Main Street in our small town, the porch was made of wood and rotting in places. Being a man who always saw a project in everything, he quickly began tearing the porch off the house. He built a new foundation and had the local concrete company come and pour a new floor.
That new porch gave us many hours of rest and relaxation as we sat and waved at everyone we knew who went by, which was almost everyone!