Front Porch Chronicles - Step by Step by Step

Al Koch
February 2026

Change is part of life. Usually, most changes are subtle and take place over a period, affording intervals for adjustments and transition. Some call change of this ilk progress. At times, I’m not sure progress is the right term. Take for instance changes having to do with front porches. Before cul-de-sacs, subdivisions, and planned communities, most houses had them. When a new house was built, it had a porch.

From the early 1900s and into the 40s, 50s, and 60s, many of the houses in Whiting-Robertsdale featured a stairway leading from the public sidewalk to a front entrance and porch. I often wondered how many steps the postman climbed up and down delivering mail each day.  Back then, many of the front doors also featured a Mail slot where the postman slid mail directly into the house.

 However, many other homeowners had mailboxes with curved metal bands underneath for newspapers, fastened to the wall adjacent to their front door. This added feature required both mail carrier and paperboy to walk up and down the stairs.  The postman filled the mailbox. The newspaper delivery guy placed the paper in the brackets instead of tossing the paper on the porch.

Sometimes, the paperboy pedaled his bicycle, balancing a large canvas bag filled with the latest editions, hanging from the handlebars. Other times, the paperboy walked on the public sidewalk pulling a wagon laden with Chicago Daily News, Hammond Times, Chicago Herald American, Gary Post Tribune, Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and for a few select customers, The Daily Racing Form.

As the former paperboy for Whiting’s Cleveland Avenue, Route 6B, I preferred tossing the paper on the porch rather than the stairway calisthenics and the below-mailbox brackets. That method of delivery was not an effective use of energy or time. Occasionally, my errant tosses missed the porch and the paper landed in the front evergreens, shrubs, flowers, and every now and then, the porch roof. You knew when Dutch Serafin, at the Whiting News Company, (Dutch oversaw the paperboys,) summoned you for a talk about customer complaints, he was not pleased.  Dutch was a teacher who had the patience of Job. He was one of the very best.  His guidance, example, character, and friendship helped so many of us learn, grow, and live.

Another treasured memory of those long-ago years was the Whiting-Robertsdale neighborhoods. They were extension of who we were. They defined and celebrated community diversity, ethnic culture, embellished character, and showcased one’s individuality. Residents not only knew who lived on their block, they spoke to one another.  Gone, too, are the many neighborhood food stores that became information and social gathering places. Today, such neighborliness has been scaled back to reflect our more modern lifestyle, mobility, personal privacy, and technological conveniences.

Remember when front porches were open? Many had a swing, hanging from chains securely fastened to the wood planked beadboard ceiling, The porch swing became “Tranquility Base,” counterbalancing hectic give-and-take parts of the day with smooth rhythmic back-and-forth waves.  Its gentle therapeutic oscillations engendered mellow calmness for stress, strain, and anxiety.

Other times, the swing beckoned sweethearts to share romantic moments. Side-by-side, holding hands while swinging gently to-and-fro, listening to the night sounds of an early spring symphony, or savoring dreamy moments of a summer night awash in moonlight offered a deliciously dreamy invitation to those young-at-heart.

Enjoying the homefront’s main observation deck while seated on comfortable, well-worn cushioned chairs, residents and passers-by would exchange pleasantries and friendly small talk about this and that. These brief snacks of conversation during the day’s unhurried respites were savored like after-dinner desserts enhancing pleasant evenings as homeowners relaxed outside enjoying the gift of extended sunshine provided by Daylight-Saving Time.

For this well-seasoned front porch aficionado,  it is gratifying that many of the newly built houses in Whiting have architecturally attractive open front porches.  Classy!

Whiting, Indiana, the legendary Capitol of the Calumet Region, is the self-contained, full-service, Little City by the Lake.  Because of Whiting’s unique 2-1/2 square miles of geography near the edge of Lake Michigan, neighborhood residents can walk a short distance to procure groceries, household and personal items, professional and municipal services, attend schools, churches, enjoy the lakefront park, Community Center, neighborhood taverns, or take in a movie. During the 40s, 50s, and 60s, many Whiting-Robertsdale residents worked at local businesses, companies, and surrounding factories.   With a population of over 10,000, Whiting-Robertsdale was a neighbor friendly, family-based community.  Residents often referred to Whiting as Mayberry, the mythical idealized community of television fame.

During grade and high school years, open porches served as quasi-monitoring stations. Parents and extended family members like granny or grandpa all enjoyed the peaceful and pensive solitude on the porch. And because nearly all school-aged children walked to and from school, neighborhood residents became familiar with kids who cut through their yard or walked on the street near their house. Residents doing chores or relaxing on the porch would call out a greeting to kids they knew: “Tell your mom and dad I said Hi.”   Kids knew their behavior, conduct, and language was always on display as they socialized with classmates walking to or from school.   

Porches also served as the family’s dock for shipping and receiving. Packages and people began their quest or ended their journey via the front porch.  Collect On Delivery from Sears, Montgomery Ward, Spiegel’s and a company named United Parcel Service, all stopped by with packages or carboard boxed treasures tied-with-string or taped brown wrapping paper.

Residents would “just happen to be on the porch” to greet the postman. And in the early, not-quite-light hours of the morning, the milkman would signal his delivery as he replaced empty glass bottles with full quarts of cold milk topped with cream. Just the sound of clinking glass milk bottles caressing the metal carrying basket announcing the morning of a new day, awakens images of youthful morning and bowlfuls of Wheaties, Cheerios, or hot oatmeal, served with fresh milk and cream.

In winter, when several inches of snow covered the landscape and cold frisky winds sculptured drifts of white ice crystals on open porches, they became an ideal fortress for grammar school friends to fend off rivals with a barrage of snowballs.  Occasionally, front window glass was in jeopardy from errant retaliatory snowballs.  But that never deterred rambunctious boys from tossing well-packed snow spheres at neighborhood girls who happen to be walking by.  These episodes of childhood exuberance incurred warnings and scoldings from watchful moms whose punishment was far more effective than snowballs if warnings went unheeded.

Porches became prime targets and preferred landing zones for daily newspapers delivered on the fly by energetic newspaper delivery boys as they bicycled through the neighborhood along their route.  Sometimes, their aim lacked precision, and errant Chicago Tribunes, Hammond Times, and Chicago Daily News, reduced the number of empty milk bottles, or shortened the life of unsuspecting geraniums.  Snowy winter and icy conditions added to the adventure when tossed newspapers tobogganed by the front door to the far corners of the porch. 

The open front porch was a place for all seasons and for all occasions. To a young man coming to meet, for the first time, the parents of the young lady he wants to take to the dance, the front porch is terror.  Later, that same front porch becomes a favorite place to close a romantic evening when understanding parents “forget” to turn on the outside lights. For countless couples, the porch was the place that led to happily-ever-after.

After one marries and has children of their own, the porch becomes a training ground for behavior.  A well-used Momism: “You can play outside but stay on the porch!”  Little by little you expand their world as they learn life lessons and increase their fledging independence. The porch serves as negotiation ground zero when adolescent and adult wishes need harmony and agreement:

Mom and Dad: “We want you home by 10:00p.m.”

Teenaged daughter: “Can we sit out on the porch swing until 10:30? It’s like being home, O.K.   Mom? Dad?

Mom and dad remembering yesteryear moments and another front porch, “Well, O.K.”

Daughter” “Daddy, will you leave the porch light off? It’s brighter than the streetlight and gives me arc flash.”

Dad, still remembering long-ago moments of teenage endearment: “I’ll change the bulb to 40 watts, wear your sunglasses! Have a good time at the dance.”    A short while later, as her parents enjoyed an after-dinner cup of coffee at the kitchen table, Dad looks up from the newspaper over his glasses and sees his wife looking at him as she touches his hand.  “What?” he asks. 

She says smiling: “Leave the porch light off until after 10:30.”  He hesitates for just a moment, “Yes, dear!”

Somewhere along the road to progress, the front porch lost favor. Most new houses built today do not have old-fashioned front porches, they have entrances! And many older homes have been remodeled to enclose the front porch, making it a year-round living space.  The porch swing is almost extinct. Most of us knew that television and whole-house air conditioning would bring an end to the open front porch. It was inevitable.

Television may have opened our window to the world, but it closed the one to our neighborhood. Nowadays, people prefer the inside air-conditioned comfort and large TV to outside swings and bothersome insects. Today, kids grow up in front of electronic screens, rather than porch screens. Maybe that’s why so many seem troubled. Those of us who’ve been around for a while know from experience that porch screens are more user friendly than battery or electrically powered screens.

When wisps from summer rain mist through the meshed netting of the window screen enhancing the perfume of warm weather seasons, delicious feelings from once-upon-a-time fills mind, heart, and spirit.

Years ago, when we remodeled our former house in Robertsdale, we enclosed the front porch and installed a bow window. It had casement windows that opened to screens to let in the best weather while preventing pesky insects from interrupting enjoyable moments.  The porch swing was replaced with an overstuffed couch.

Our current home has a front entrance—no porch. Instead, there is a backyard deck with a glider that offers front porch-like benefits. These days, as a seasoned geriatric octogenarian on permanent recess, I’m not much of a porch swinger—I’m a glider.  I’m built for pleasure, not speed.  Unashamedly I like the slower pace.  Now, I can stay out on the deck for as long as I want. The glider is comfortable, the breeze is delightful, and, when the lady of the house shares these moments, we keep the light off.

Remembering open front porches and steps will always engender fond memories of yesteryear. These may not have been the best places in the house, but they’re close to the front.