I’ve never lived in a house with a porch. Porches, in my childhood, were déclassé. Porches, wrapping around the fronts of houses were awfully close to stoops – those architectural extensions of front steps that hung off the facades of inner city homes. In 1950s suburbia we had patios or decks to extend our lives into the great, green outdoors.
My parent’s generation, trying to slough off their mittel-European, or even worse, Eastern European roots, rejected much of what reminded them of the Old World. Arriving in the United States, cities, with available and more importantly, cheap, slum housing, was where they planted themselves into American soil. Brooklyn, and the Bronx provided first homes to many of my parent’s cohort. And, for the majority, as soon as they were financially able, moving to suburbia was the goal. These freshly minted Americans who had grown up playing handball and hopscotch near the stoops their parents watched from, wanted more for their own children.
New construction filled the pastoral outreaches of New York. Ranch houses, split-levels and faux Colonials peppered the landscapes of burgeoning communities. What they provided in the way of modernity and convenience, they lacked, in many cases, in charm. Elegant front porches, picturesque picket fences, gazebos and arbors made way for two car garages and shiny black driveways. There wasn’t a stoop to be seen.
Reading - especially the children’s classics - was the way I navigated childhood. My daydreaming took me to visit Laura Ingalls Wilder in the late 19th century Midwest and Anne in her farmhouse, Green Gables. I imagined myself sitting on their porches, swinging my legs and eating fresh-picked strawberries, served by motherly, aproned women.
My reality, in New Rochelle, involved shlepping old beach chairs out to the top of the driveway and hanging around (or not) with my parents, as their friends, with ice coffee in hand, stopped by. The adults loved it – we kids were bored to distraction.
A few years after we moved into our house, when my father had saved enough money to make some improvements, it was decided that we should build a deck off the BACK of the house. We lived on hilly land and a patio would have meant major earth-moving at an expense greater than my father had budgeted. A distant cousin, who had some experience in construction came and attached a simple wooden deck just outside the kitchen door. To access it from the yard, we had to climb up 9 stairs on a flimsy, ladder-like staircase.
Mom and Dad acquired some inexpensive outdoor furniture and a barbecue grill. They were delighted. I however, ignored the whole structure. I was scared of stairs that had no back and this deck did not look at all like my dreams of a sunny porch with morning glories entwined around the columns. I avoided it – it’s relentless sun and lack of coziness contradicted my fantasies. I went back to my books and the porches of Prince Edward Island and Iowa. I even fantasized about sitting with Francie on her stoop under a Brooklyn tree. My parents could not understand why I never liked to hang out on the deck they were so proud of providing for their children. Wooden decks do not become cozy havens of security and dreams in most cases, do not cross generational lines.
