Published: May 14, 2008 06:52 pm            

A tale of two Lebanon porches

I guess I can’t say this without being absolutely sure, but I think I might be a one-house sort of guy. Just like I can’t imagine myself ever being married to someone else, I can’t picture ever living in another house. I didn’t become a homeowner until I was 35 years old. Before that, I was a home-borrower, I guess. I lived in a succession of abodes that started with a college dorm room and ended with an enormous loft apartment. During that time, housing was a reflection of our transient lives, pit stops on our way to somewhere else.

We landed in our community because it split the difference between Purdue, where I was in graduate school, and Indianapolis, where my wife was working. We rented because we thought this would be just another stop before we moved somewhere else. In 2000 we realized we no longer talked about living in another part of the world and decided to purchase a home.

Although we were approved by the bank for a home loan that we thought was an outrageous amount of money, we set our sites on homes of modest cost and size, settling on a 1,100 square foot house built nearly a century ago. It was just us, so we thought two bedrooms and a bath would be plenty of room. We filled up that other bedroom within a year with a baby; a few years later another came along. Our boys became not just brothers, but also roommates.

Most families, at this point, would be calling a realtor or perhaps a builder, and making plans for a bigger house. I’m not inclined to do that. We may add on some square footage eventually, but for now I like things the way they are. I do admit, however, that tight quarters can sometimes drive me crazy.

As the weather warms, the outside of our house is just as much a part of our home as the inside. Like our house, our yard is small so there’s no sending the kids to the “back 40.” My favorite parts of the exterior of our home are our porches. Our house has two porches: a front porch and a back porch. I love them both, but for different reasons.

Our front porch has white columns, a gate that is usually left open, and some nice outdoor furniture. This is where we hang Christmas lights, open presents on summer birthdays, and share popsicles with the neighborhood kids. Our front porch is where we watch the world go by. It is where we’ve seen neighborhood houses change hands. We’ve said sad good-byes to elderly neighbors and joyously welcomed new families who have become dear friends. The front porch is were we experience community.

The front porch is the way we interact with the outside world; the back porch is where I go when I need to retreat from it, and when our little house occasionally feels a bit too little. It is where I keep my charcoal grill and all my grilling paraphernalia and where the only furniture is an old sun-faded canvas lawn chair. As the weather warms, we’ll spend lots of time on our front porch — and I’ll escape to the back porch when I need a little time to myself.

If you see us on the front porch this summer eating watermelon or homemade ice cream, feel free to stop by. But if you peak over the fence and spot me back there smoking a pork shoulder low-and-slow, please don’t bother me.

Scott Hutcheson is a food writer based in Lebanon. Visit the Hungry Hoosier Web site at www.hungryhoosier.com.

        

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