In July 1973, Ford Times ran a lament that reads like it could've been written last week: “Whatever became of the front porch?” Not the screened-in kind, or the 5x7 concrete slab with plastic columns — the real ones. The “homely, ample rectangles that spanned most housefronts.”

The piece is a tour of everything a front porch used to be responsible for: babies aired in buggies, marbles rolled down the steps for the thrill of the bounce, mothers with iced tea watching the block, fathers with the evening paper and a sigh from the glider cushions. Courting had its own porch rules, too — strictly regulated by a 75-watt bulb and a father with a hand on the switch.

It’s a small thing, a porch. But a lot happened on them once — meditation and gossip, punishment and love, “from the first show of lilacs to the first falling leaves.” Worth a read this week, especially if you've got one to sit on.

Read the story via the Ford Times archive, July 1973. Browse more at FordHeritageVault.com.