The Kitchen Table The Kitchen Table
There was nothing special about the kitchen table, although there was a simple decoration that generally festooned its surface. My earliest memories are of mom sitting to one side of the table with her legs propped up and reading a book. She would read most of the morning, only to be interrupted by the occasional childhood boo-boo that needed attending. Sometimes she would doze off in the chair with her book, and we would tip-toe into the living room so as not to disturb her.
We ate virtually every meal in the kitchen, and only on special occasions did we eat in the dining room. It seemed as if the conversations never ceased, and while most of the dialogue was unmemorable, there are a few that stood out. One of my most vivid memories of the kitchen table happened during lunchtime. As the family sat around the lunch table, dad started to talk about how a young high school girl became pregnant.
"That boy should have known better," said dad.
Then he peered at each of the boys before he delivered his follow-up sermon, "Don't ever get a girl pregnant," he scolded.
He continued, "If you get a girl pregnant, you'll never be allowed back into this house."
These strong words were powerful for a table surrounded by 6 children. It was even more powerful because the oldest child at the table was barely 12 years old, and none of the boys whom these comments were directed even understood the anatomy of the female. More importantly, not being allowed back into the house was the most scary part...I was committed from that point to hold onto my virginity until long after I was married. From my point of view, "where would I go...I was only 12."
A few years later dad provided a similar lecture to Tim and myself before we entered our freshman year in college. "If you come back with long hair, "dad firmly told us, "you'll have to eat your thanksgiving dinner out on the porch." Well we did come back with long hair, and "yes" we ate our thanksgiving dinner with the rest of the family. Dad was just happy to see us...long hair and all.
It was also at the kitchen table that we learned about age discrimination, although at the time we weren't smart enough to connect the dots. When the children had hamburgers, dad and mom had steak. The closest we got to eating steak was nibbling on the t-bone steak bone and chewing on the crisply cooked fat that neither parents consumed. We drank Carnation canned milk, our parents drank "mom and dad's milk" which was sweeter than the distinctively bitter taste we drank daily. Dad was given bigger portions, and the rest of us scrambled for what was left on the table. If lobster was on the menu for the parents, we knew it would be fish sticks for us. As we grew older, the age discrimination minimized; and generally everyone ate the same thing at the table. But steak was on the table less often...
Before the kitchen was remodeled, it tended to be a tight fit getting in and out of chairs. This was particularly true for dad, who not only added some weight to his girth over the years, but whose chair was also located at the back of this tight quarters. Moving in and out of this assemblage of chairs was difficult at best for him, but became more difficult after dad's chair fell into a hole that mysteriously appeared in the floor. Now this tight area became impassable on one side. Dad had to bring in the carpenters, but he was to hear more bad news. The hole was a problem that could be fixed, but they found that there was no support in the center of the basement. They would need to place a support to prop the floor back into alignment...otherwise dad would be looking at a much larger problem in the future. These carpenters fixed the kitchen floor as well as applying this brace strategically between the basement floor and ceiling beams. For a while this became a sight-seeing spot in which the Smith children would parade the neighborhood kids in front of.
Generally, the conversations around the table was information gathering: "What did you do in school today," or just "what did you do today." At that each of us would describe our day...some more in detail than others. Dad would even contribute what he did that day as well, or he would relate a conversation that gave him some special meaning.
"This morning I talked to someone from Long Lake who told me that he only feeds his children bread and water." Dad calmly related to us.
"Only bread and water," one of the siblings asked.
"Yes," said dad, "and he said that this saved him a lot of money."
To which I responded back, "He's so tight, he squeaks."
"Don't talk that way about your elders, "dad snapped back. "Its disrespectful."
It was then that I realized that he thought this farmer's suggestion was a good one, and my pointing out his penny-pinching ways was, in this case, unwelcomed. In any event, dad never mentioned this farmer's money savings idea again. I remember mom talking about how well she managed the food budget in later years. "We spend only $300 a month on food, and its the same amount that other women with a family of four spend," she noted. Mom did find creative ways to keep food costs down. When we had tuna fish sandwiches, it was actually 'mayonnaise with some tuna' sandwiches. The idea was to stretch the food budget by adding fillers and other things into our general diet. Another way that the food budget was kept in check was a simple understanding about snacking between meals - it was not allowed.
The kitchen table was a place where we discussed our daily activities, our problems, coming events, family news and so on. The significance of this table was not lost on me in later years, especially when all of mom's children surrounded her bed in her final hours. The children babbled incessantly around her bed, the bed now replacing the venerable Smith kitchen table, and the conversations sounded a lot like those that occurred so many times over the years. While this was a time of great sadness, for those few short hours it helped mute the sorrow that surrounded us. Mom and dad are no longer with us, however even as their children assemble today, the gathering is always around a table, which now as it always has been - a table where we discuss our united history and joy that our family has brought us over the years.
Story by Terry Smith