Don’t Let The Screen Door Slam!

My dear readers….for those of you who have heard that phrase for more times than you care to admit….then you will relate to this post.  “Don’t slam the door”…my mother would yell as we kids ran in and out of the house.

When I was growing up, we had a screen door on our back door. And because we were “back door” people…that is the door that we children went in and out of almost constantly. …or should I say ran in and out of.  Summertime meant the wooden back door was swung open and the screen door became the main door of entry.  At night, the little hook and latch provided the only security because we left the main door open all summer.  We didn’t need to lock our doors back then.  We didn’t have air conditioners like we do today….we had window fans or ceiling fans or tabletop fans and in New Mexico…we had swamp coolers.   

Can we talk front and back doors?  Are you a front door or a back door house?

Growing up, I would have to say we were a back door house.  Hardly anyone came to our front door…company always came to our back door, many times without knocking but opening the screen door calling “YooHoo” and then came the familiar creak and squeak as the screen door opened followed by a really loud bang as the company entered our kitchen.  

It was convenient because we lived in the country most of the years of adolescence and the sand and gravel driveway led right up to the back door.  Not the front door…the back door.

This was the welcoming door which always had warm cookies and sweet tea waiting on the formica covered table with the bright yellow plastic cushioned chairs. 

For as far back as I can remember…I have always lived in a back door house. We did have a front door which led right into the living room….but that was not the room we spent our time in.  It was the room that stayed the neatest and cleanest. No, the room we used as a family room was usually the oversized dining room or kitchen! With the kitchen taking precedence over the dining room.  You would never find one of us kids eating cereal out of the box in the living room.  If someone knocked at the front door, (we didn’t have a doorbell) it was usually the UPS driver or a lost traveler looking for direction.  Definitely someone who didn’t know us.

But our back door….that was a different story. The table and floor close to the door became the resting place of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!   The same for my grandma and aunt’s back door houses.  They had small back porches and we piled “stuff” on their chest freezers too.

Soooooo, my dream (when I grew up in my perfect world),  I vowed to have a front door house.  And a door bell!  

No more coming through the back door tripping over shoes, boots, coats etc.  I dreamed of a pretty white house with a white picket fence loaded with pink roses…..where my visitors would ring the bell and I would greet them at the front door (looking super cute of course) and I would invite them in to sit in my super clean living room and offer them sweet tea and fresh baked apple cake.

As in reality…my first home was white…no picket fence or pink roses, I did have a door bell BUT…….that home was a back door house!

And now the good news and the bad news.  Most of the houses I have lived in have had garages which makes it convenient for bad weather. One can enter the house through the garage door which makes it sort of a back door house. But I finally learned the trick to making a back door house a front door house.  ALWAYS close the garage door.  Then visitors are forced to come to the front door.  Unfortunately, I don’t greet them in a super cute outfit.  I usually have something a bit more comfy and my hair is usually pulled up in a banana clip….Sort of a Katherine Hepburn look. However, I do bake all kinds of cakes, cookies and breads.  I just might have to pull something out of the freezer.

Which brings me to the recipe today.   I posted this sour cream coffee cake recipe almost 2 years ago to the day….(click on recipe link here) Sour Cream Coffee Cake and it was a recipe I baked about once every couple of weeks.  I have been asked for this recipe numerous times so in remembrance of back doors every where…I am re-posting it. 

Which door is your house?  If you had to choose, which one would it be? 

Blessings my dear readers…..