Cultural holdovers

Customs remain embedded with us after the initial raison-d’etre is gone. The other day my wife said she did not like to sit out on the front patio with me looking out on the street in front of our house because it was “country” to do that. She meant the sort of thing people from rural areas do.
I gave her a history lesson. The reason people sat out on the front porch – which, BTW, was an architectural innovation brought from West Africa – was that the outhouse was located at the back of the house and it smelled bad back there, so sitting out front was much preferred.
Later, sitting out front was taken as a sign you still did not have indoor plumbing and so was a sign of being country. My wife is barely removed from that rural background and I certainly remember homes with an outhouse.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *