REMEMBERING WHEN: The Kitchen Table
By Keith Schell
When our busy family finds the time to get together these days, it is generally for a birthday or one of the traditional meal-oriented holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas.
When we congregate at someone's home, we tend to gather at a special place and spend the majority of our time together in that one particular place. That one particular place in our home is the special bonding place that holds our family together.
That bonding place is the kitchen table.
The kitchen table is the focal point in the average family's house - the place in the family home where everyone gets together to catch each other up on their lives. That's where the eating is done, that's where the talking is done, that's where the laughing is done, and that's where the bonding is done.
Everything in our family gatherings tends to revolve around time spent at the kitchen table, and it always has, from our early childhood meals to the spirited after-dinner conversations we have in our present-day adulthood.
When we were very little, we ate all our meals at the kitchen table. It was the one place where everyone got together at the same time. You were asked how school went that day, and Mom and Dad discussed the events and happenings of their day (and as a kid, if you kept your mouth shut and your ears open, you could sometimes learn some very interesting things).
You learned your manners at the kitchen table. This is where you learned to eat with your mouth closed, sit up straight and keep your elbows off the table, not stick your tongue out or flick peas at your brothers and sisters, not slurp your soup, and all the other lessons in good table manners essential to helping you grow up to be a well-rounded and well-mannered person.
When Mom was working in the kitchen and wanted to keep an eye on you, you played at the kitchen table. When you got a model for your birthday and wanted to glue it together, you put newspapers down and glued it together at the kitchen table. You drew pictures in drawing pads or on pieces of paper at the kitchen table. You coloured in colouring books at the kitchen table. You peeled potatoes and carrots for dinner at the kitchen table. When the neighbour ladies got together for coffee and gossip, they all sat around the kitchen table. And, in the absence of having his own shop, Dad would sometimes fix small appliances or other odds and ends at the kitchen table.
Bills were paid at the kitchen table. Major family discussions took place at the kitchen table. Major decisions were made at the kitchen table. And when we were bad and had to be punished, sentence was often meted out by our parents at the kitchen table.
Family game night was always at the kitchen table, whether it be crokinole, monopoly, risk, tabletop hockey or other kids' games you played with your siblings. Your parents would play assorted card games with friends at the kitchen table. In the absence of a den or a man cave, your Dad might occasionally play poker with his buddies when Mom would let him (usually over a few alcoholic beverages), and it was usually at the kitchen table.
Christmas and birthday gifts were sneakily wrapped on the kitchen table when the gift recipient wasn't around. Greeting cards for various events like birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas were often signed on the kitchen table to be sent to friends and loved ones. Notes were usually left on the kitchen table to let others know where you were going and what you were doing or to tell you to pick up milk on your way home.
Birthday parties, mostly for little kids and sometimes for grownups, were always held around the kitchen table. That's where the songs were sung, the cake was cut and eaten, the gifts were opened, and the birthday pictures for the photo album were taken, always around the kitchen table.
For all these life events and many more, the kitchen table was always front and center in the middle of the action. So many family memories have been made around the kitchen table. If your kitchen table could talk over the years what stories it could tell!
Everyone takes the kitchen table for granted, but in many ways, it can be the most important piece of furniture in the house.
So the next time you take a meal at the kitchen table, think about how many family memories, both happy and sad, your kitchen table has been witness to.
And take solace in one thing: whatever you may need it for in the future, be it a meal, a special event or simply a gathering of loved ones, you will always have the steadfast and unconditional support of the most important piece of family-friendly furniture in your home:
The kitchen table!