I feel like I didn’t get the memo or something. But I live in a suburb between a city and rural areas, mix of a lot of different life styles. It’s a lot like the neighborhood I grew up in, but for some reason here the gen x white people all hang out in there driveways. They’ll set a fire pit out sometimes and they all have back yards. Anyone else experience this? Am I the weird one? It makes walking the dog feel really weird sometimes.
lol I’ve noticed that in my city. I don’t know why but once it started I noticed more people doing it. Maybe it’s a modern version of hanging out on the front porch but the post 60’s houses don’t have the big raised area with a bench or swing anymore. Kinda funny when the garage is packed full of crap so they have to go out the front door or come around from the back.
i think it’s a lot this. porches nowadays are like some Backroom’s memory fragment. plus, the bit/critique in the suburban south in the 2000s was that “white people cookout in the back yard, black people cookout in the front yard.” sort of as a way to dig at how white people are all atomized behind their fences and create this “ghost village” effect in their neighborhoods by leaving the lot space in front of the house space unused for social gathering.
when i lived in a detached house in a small city in the late 2000s, i made it a point to do my drinking on the front porch so it would feel more sociable. neighbors would wave or sometimes stop by to jaw about whatever. i was lucky enough to be in an older style home on a tiny lot where the front porch was adjacent to the sidewalk. like the phrase goes, “the front stoop is the poor man’s lounge.” drinks are cheap, catch a cool breeze on a hot day (i didn’t have A/C there), gab with random people, etc.
Sounds lovely tbh
it was p cool. i had some cool people on my street. it was near campus, so some students, a few eccentrics like me. i was finishing school and letting a friend couch surf, and my cat at the time was very gregarious and would lure people up to the porch. i was buying 2 buck chuck by the case, so could always offer people a glass of the “house red” and was half in the bag by 2pm.
there was a period of time where it was kind of a spot. or it felt that way in my boozy haze.