ABSTRACT
In the small-town American South porch-sitting was once a nearly universal pastime. The actual activity of porch-sitting has largely succumbed to the assaults of air-conditioning, cable television, and migrants from places with cold evenings. Many new Southern homes substitute a solipsistic deck out back for the traditional outward-looking front porch. When the Appearance Commission of the eastern North Carolina town of Charles Reagan Wilson decided to do something about how the town looked, it was no surprise that they started with Wilson's front porches. The commission came up with some lame excuses about eliminating breeding places for rats and fleas, but the real objection was that the stuff just looks so trashy. Like much of the South's traditional culture, porch-sitting survives in its least self-conscious form among poor and working-class folk, black and white. But for all the talk of ratty porch furniture as a regional tradition, what the Appearance Commission really threatens is a different Southern tradition altogether.
