...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
