I don’t know who invented the porch, but I feel certain it was someone in the South.

A porch in the South is an essential part of any southern home. Furthermore, in the Deep South, most nursing homes worth their salt have large porches. In the cooler evening hours, you’ll still see dozens of rocking chairs, filled with a generation who knew if supper was over, it was porch time.

Long before there were “spaces” to love and remodel, a porch was an add on everyone had to have as a practical part of life in the south.

Screened in porches were a necessity in the long, hot, humid summers. The porch would allow you to catch a murmur of air movement, if you were lucky. Inside, there was nothing but stifling heat. This was long before central air, and the fans you could buy just moved hot air from one spot to another.

The screen protected you from mosquitoes…although the no-seums always managed to get in and bite a spot just out of reach, as you were drifting off in the waning light.

It was a treat as a child to sleep on the screened porch. Yes, it was hot, but the night sounds were near. The thrum of frogs. The whirring of night birds deftly flying by. The deep throated bullfrog bellowing from a nearby pond.

Great, voluminous ferns are a staple on Southern porches. Hanging from the roof, blousing our over a planter, their dark green fronds thrive in humidity, licking up the almost daily misting of water that Gramma sifted over them.

In the South, even the poorest shotgun house has a porch. It only needs to be large enough to hold a couple of chairs. The porch is where Southerners watch the world go by – not that there is much to see. After supper, though, you will find the older ones on the porch, rocking in squeaky chairs that press rhythmically against the bowing porch timber.

In simpler days, a porch was a place to speak to your neighbor as they walk by, causing them to pause and discuss the latest gossip. Or you might just wave at folks as they drove by with their windows down.

Today porches are a lot fancier, I’ve noticed. This traditional Southern necessity has become a status symbol, and many are filled with perfectly matched furniture, knick knacks, and assorted decor. The ferns and plants are replaced every year, because no one can grow them like Gramma could.

With the coming of manicured porches, I’ve noticed people are not actually on their porches. A pretty porch makes for a good show, but ends up standing empty. People enter their house through the garage, and the front door and porch get little, if any, attention.

I’m a throwback to olden times, albeit in a HOA neighborhood. Our house is an older one for this place, and is tucked in the back, around a curve. From my porch, where I can hear the roosters call and the donkeys bray from the road behind our house, I sit in relative seclusion. The dogwood tree, live oak, and rose of Sharon bushes are my camouflage as I sit in the wicker chair. The geranium beside me wafts it’s peppery smell toward me if a breeze coasts by, and I’ll slap at my legs if I feel one of those dad-gummed no-seums.

It’s my place of peace. A refuge. A place to relax and remember a simpler time gone by.

I’m grateful for this Southern porch of mine.