When I was a kid, there was a rule in my dad's house; we were not allowed to say, "while you're up," from the dinner table and then ask for something. If a person was getting up to get themselves seconds, or pull a can of Tab out of the fridge, they weren't up to take care of the other two at the table. We were allowed to be direct. We could ask someone to get up and do something for us, but no passive waiting and then pouncing. I guess he was trying to teach my brother and I not to be opportunists.
Perhaps you've already created a visual in your mind's eye. I could add a few more morsels to help paint the picture you might be seeing. We had to set the table every night, napkin folded under the salad and main course forks on the left, knife with blade pointed toward plate on the right, spoon on the outside. Glasses were always placed in the upper left hand at 2 o'clock, above the tops of the knife and spoon.
When we ate, we were never allowed to have our elbows on the table, always had to have our napkins in our laps, and use polite dinner voices. We were required to eat with our mouths closed and say "excuse me" if an accidental burp escaped.
Have you got it now?
I wonder what you see. Perhaps a lovely dining room with a big mahogany table.cloth napkins and formal china. Maybe you imagine a multi-course meal cooked by a mother or chef. What color is the room? Are the walls rich ocher with gold accents? Are there oil paintings on the wall? Or do you have us seated at a 1970s suburban table, mid-century modern accents surrounding us, cheerful yellow wallpaper making the room seem festive.
I believe I imagined these things for myself as well, starting with a homemaker mother who wore aprons to cook wholesome buffets, and ending with large sunny rooms that were filled with happy conversations and the sounds of merriment.I spent an awful lot of time watching and wishing for a Brady Bunch reality, and coveting the rich girls at school with their wall-to-wall carpeting and formal living rooms done all in white.
My father grew up upper middle class, his father a doctor, his mother a volunteer. They were Jews in a wealthy town near Boston. Not religious or observant, they celebrated Christmas and had my father and his sister raised by nannies, most of whom treated them with disdain, and sometimes outright hostility.They were assimilationists and drinkers who didn't seem to understand or care about the delicate nature of their childrens' psyches.
It must have been there that my dad learned his manners and the rules of social etiquette which he then passed down to us during the 9 months of the school year when we lived with him in California. I didn't think anything of it as a kid, except I found all the rules stifling. He watched and corrected. Corrected and watched.
It wasn't until I was older that i
realized the strange juxtapositions of our lives. We lived in a wealthy
bedroom community. Even now to hear its name would evoke in your imagination big
houses, groomed back yards, horses, fancy cars, and swimming pools in gated communities. It's true, many children I
grew up with had these things. Us, not so much.If you placed us in a formal dining room, a do-over is required. If you imagined us in a well furnished home, you might want to try again. My brother, father and I ate in the kitchen of a small unattractive tract house built with haste in the early 50s. We ate at a shellacked wooden picnic table, sitting on benches to have our food - Hamburger Helper, frozen mixed vegetables, ice berg lettuce salad. Or Burger King. Sometimes we ate Dinty Moore beef stew, my favorite. On warm days my father would throw a thick steak on the grill of a patio covered with yellowed plastic sheeting to keep the sun's torturous light to a minimum. I loved steak and potatoes nights. Unless something wasn't working out and dad got angry. That ruined everything.
My father had the crossing guard at school sew patches onto our clothes to make them last and went shopping every night for dinner, never planning ahead. Our luxuries - a roll away dishwasher with a clunky nozzle connector, and eventually, when they were invented, a microwave that sat on top of the fake butcher block of the dishwasher. Our house was sparse and undecorated. Our kitchen without a mother. I didn't realize until much later that cooking stove top casseroles from a box at the age of 9 did not make me a good cook. At the time, it seemed like I was taking care of the family.
Ours was a house of cobwebs, radio parts, soldering wire and shelves made from 2x4s hung on metal bars. The back yard was huge, but unkempt, and backed up onto a golf course which we could see through the chain link fence. Sometimes the golf balls went over the top and landed in our yard. And sometimes we gave them back.
I can tell you a lot about growing up with a single father during a time when divorce was a novelty. I can describe , with mouth watering detail, the taste of Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff. And no matter what kind of table I'm at, I can still tell you which utensil is for which course.
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