Front Porch
"There used to be a time when southern houses were known for their
front porches: a place to cook off, to watch the world, to talk things over.
The home and the road came together at the porch, and people who didn't meet
anywhere else could meet there for conversation and business. Today, in a
world of air conditioning and mass-market subdivisions, the front porch is
not as prominent in southern life as it used to be...
"Some porches, of course, were built to overawe visitors, not to entertain
them. And there are rules about who could and could not use the door. Our porch
is not like that."
Harry L. Watson and John Shelton Reed, editors, inaugural issue of Southern Cultures, pp. 1-3. 1993 Duke University Press
I have now been a weblogger for a year. My weblog has become my front porch. Next week I am going to have lunch with a number of close friends, most of them were people I didn't even know existed one year ago. The following week, I am going to repeat this with some new friends on the west coast.