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...as described by Gaylord Gibbon in his Etiquette Along the Mississippi (p.28), a book not found in our house but it applied to us anyway.

The backyard is for privacy. Only people walking in the alley will bother you, and they're the sort who would anyway. The porch is sociable, but certain rules apply:

* Even if you're screened from public view, it's polite to call out hello to passers-by you know. It's up to them to stop or not. It's up to you to invite them in or not. The porch is a room of your house, not part of the yard. Only peddlers or certain ministers would barge right in.

* If you say, "Why don't you come up and sit for a bit?," it is customary for them to decline politely. If the invite was legit, it should then be repeated.

* An invite to the porch is not an invite to the house. Its terms are limited to a brief visit on the porch, no refreshments necessarily provided unless the occupants have such at hand.

* When the host stands and stretches or says, "Well-," the visitor should need no further signal that the visit has ended. Only an oaf would remain longer. If the host say, "You don't have to run, do you?," this is not a question but a pleasantry.

Humankind knows no finer amenity that the screened porch. It is the temple of family life, and the sacred preserve of the luxurious custom known as "visiting." Compare it to the barbarity of the"business lunch," the hideous conversational burden of the cocktail party, and the prison that is the formal dinner, the porch visit shines with civility.


In winter, we sit in the house
Around a blazing fire.
In summer, we sit on the porch
Like birds on a telephone wire.



-Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, 1985, Viking Press








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