"Ooooo," she warbled through the narrow crack. "Bless my bars and stars!" I looked up from the top step in time to see one eye before the porch door closed again. Grandma and I smiled at each other and waited. We could hear Aunt Leola fumble to undo the anchor glide for the chain bolt. It held the porch door steady against unwanted intruders and was the last of three protective mechanisms put in place by Uncle Ed. This was the standard prelude to our visits at Aunt Leola and Uncle Ed's home.

The year was 1947 and I was five years old. Home invasions in Fond du Lac were nearly unheard of then, and no one else that I knew ever locked their doors. This was part of what made visits to Uncle Ed's so interesting. That and what mom had said about Ed's rocker being attached to his backside.

I enjoyed frequent visits to Grandma and Grandpa Rogge's house as a child. When Grandma had finished with her housework, she and I nearly always took a walk together. No matter which way we walked, our treks always ended, as if by magic, on the front porch steps of the house at 240 5th Street.

There, Ed and Leola lived an insular existence. Ed worked occasionally as a process server for the city and Leola was an accomplished tailor. She also had a beautiful contralto voice and often sang for weddings and funerals. Their home had a somewhat exotic atmosphere, quite different from that to which I was accustomed.

We, along with Leola's dressmaking clients, were the only people who used their front door as an entrance. Once admitted, we stepped into the small, enclosed front porch, and Leola pulled us both to her soft self. The window shades were all pulled to the full down position, and the open door briefly allowed a shaft of sunlight to cross the dark interior. I watched the tiny flecks of dust float through the beam and back out of sight into the gloom. My eyes adjusted to the dimness and while Leola relocked the bolts and chains, I looked around. The porch was a vault for hundreds of past issues of the National Geographic magazine. There was an old wicker chair there facing a shaded window, and it, too was piled high with Geographic overflow. The porch also served as an airlock between the fresh breezes of the outdoors and the hermetically sealed inner living quarters.

Once the porch was again secure, Leola opened the house door and we stepped into the living room. Curtains and shades served as barricades against the neighbors and prying eyes and it took a moment

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