It sometimes seems the two most used pieces of furniture in our home are the front porch rocking chairs in which we come to rest in many days.

There are few things I truly love. I love the outdoors, my family, college football, mama’s fried chicken, and I love sweet tea, the nectar of the south. I also love special places. Places like old diners, muddy duck swamps, and the State Fair on a clear, crisp, October day. But there’s a place I especially love not far from where I lay my head at night. It’s right beyond the threshold of my front door.

As if stepping through a portal to when life was seen in black and white, a good front porch is a salve for the senses. It’s a place where a simple offering of a swing, a cold drink, and soft shell peanuts are sufficient to pass the time. Some say the kitchen is the heart of the home, but I believe the front porch is its soul. The squeal of the floor planks as the rocker presses against its bones and the creak of the chain that suspends the faded wooden swing is like a welcoming committee to a road weary traveler. It’s a magical place where boys kiss girls, families reunite, lies are told, and life is celebrated, even the hard parts.

Some say the kitchen is the heart of the house, but I believe the front porch is its soul.

– Steve Wade

As a child, our front porch was always a cool retreat suggesting the hot days of summer had somehow been omitted from the party’s guest list. Growing up, it was a place where we shelled peas, snapped beans, and shucked corn from our garden. Hummingbirds, like the Red Baron, flew sorties hither and tither, stopping only briefly to slurp the red Kool-Aid provided for their sipping pleasure. The smell of honeysuckle vines and gardenias pushing through the rail pickets would well up in me a craving for popsicles and fresh squeezed lemonade.

I don’t see folks lounging on front porches much anymore. Perhaps it’s because of air conditioning, mosquitoes, or people just do not like people like we used to. What once was an open invitation to sit a spell has become a moat for solicitors and those who cycle two-by-two.

Most new homes now have porch stoops which are perfect places for plants, rocking chairs need not apply. Backyard patios seem to be where the action is, but it is not the same. As the late comedian and writer, Lewis Grizzard, once wrote, “It’s hard to get drunk and fall off a patio”.

Wherever your proverbial “porch” may be in life, whether at home or some other proverbial special place, find those you love, swing in the dark, snap some beans, wrestle with truth, tell some tall stories, but some true, too, and kiss your main squeeze until mama flickers the porch light, as the next kiss will have to wait until tomorrow.