The Table Or the Tree
It never ceases to amaze me how we can believe that an actor/actress on a commercial is really
the character he or she portrayed on a sitcom. Watching T.V. the other night, Roseanne Barr was
doing a commercial on Nick@Nite talking about the importance of having dinner at the "family
table." So the commercial flashed back to her and John Goodman on a Roseanne episode sitting
at the dinner table engaged in an argument which was supposed to be funny to the viewer. The
point of the commercial was that it doesn't matter what goes on at the family table as long as you
have one.
As a kid, we had a family table. It was a war zone. I'm sure that many people can relate to my
family table, and I am sick of calling it that, too. (What is this new term family table- anyway?)
In my house, the family table was more like the family zoo. It didn't really dawn on me how
crazy it was until my sister started dating, and she would bring one of her boyfriends home for
dinner. The poor guy would sit there and watch as my father cooled a baked potato. You know,
the way everyone does it. Take the potato out of the skin with a fork and hold it about two feet in
the air for about 15 seconds and stare at the steam. Then wave it up and down like a magic wand
4 or 5 times until you think it is cool. We all knew it was still hot. He would start to eat it, and
then he would leave his mouth half open while he sucked air in to try to cool it.
You see, my father was a short order cook when he was younger, and he was also a mess
sergeant in the army. I guess he thought that made him some sort of chef. He always complained
about my mother's cooking. She wasn't very open to his comments either which led to the battle
lines being drawn between the two of them.
My dad also watched his diet; his dinners consisted of a small piece of protein, a vegetable, a
potato, and a slice of bread. My mother consistently made those meals for him every night for
dinner. But she always fed my two sisters and me the good stuff; you know, all starch and no
protein. That really got to him. The question he always asked was, "Why are you feeding them
that?"
I tell you, he was purely disgusted by the meals we ate. My father didn't want me to get fat, but I
did. I never knew when he was going to make another negative comment about my diet. One
night I ate about a pound of macaroni and meat sauce and a loaf of Italian bread for dinner while
he had his standard sparse dinner. He didn't say one word to me about what I was eating; he just
watched. It was almost fun eating dinner with him. I was surprised, but very relieved that he had
let me eat my delicious dinner in peace without making one negative comment about my
unhealthy dinner.
About two hours later I sneezed. I said, "I think I'm getting a cold." That was a mistake. He
couldn't wait to jump on that. He said, "Well, that stuff you ate for dinner tonight, you could
catch anything from that, and you gobbled it up like dog food." My father, the general, won that
battle after all. He got me.
There were many little idiosyncrasies he had. One day he picked up the butter dish at the dinner
table and he found a hair in it. A riot nearly broke out. He walked away from the dinner table
thinking that it might be a pubic hair. He wore dentures that were out of his mouth every waking
minute that he wasn't eating or working. They usually fell out of his mouth when he started to
yell. That's when he would rip them out of his mouth so he could finish his tirade. Before he
came to the table his teeth had to be brushed, cleaned, and rinsed for about 10 minutes. My
mother would call him to dinner really early so he would have time to get his dentures polished
up. She knew he hated cold food and didn't want to listen to him complain.
One night he was going through his denture ritual spit shining his teeth for an unusually long
time. My mother must have called him to the table for 20 minutes. He finally sat down, took
three bites of food, and looked at me and said, "Cold."
My mother went nuts because she had done everything humanly possible to get him to the table
while the food was still hot. He proceeded to laugh at her outburst which predictably ended in
another battle. This time, the general had the land mine perfectly placed and she stepped on it.
Diet was always on my father's mind. One evening, my sister was leaving for a friend's house at
the dinner hour. My father said to her, "Aren't you going to eat dinner with us?" She said, "No, I
'm eating at Carol's house." He said, "Oh you are." After she left he looked at me and said,
"She'll eat those greasy foods over there and have fat legs like Carol." Lucky for her! She got
out before the general decided to open fire.
My oldest sister left home and moved to New York when she was 21 years old. I just can't
imagine why. She would come back to visit once a month or so. My sister had the ability to eat
fast, and I mean really fast, like she was going to the electric chair. My father, on the other hand,
was the slowest eater on the planet. She would be finishing eating and he would just be getting
started. When she was done eating she got up and started to clear the table and do the dishes. In a
small kitchen the strong smell of Lux Liquid started to become really noticeable. Not to mention
my sister's soapy hands clearing the table were leaving soap suds behind - you guessed it - on
my father's food. War, this meant war. My sister didn't have a chance to surrender and throw up
the white flag. She was blown right out of the house and back to Brooklyn Heights.
The Family Table is a popular new term that is supposed to mean that dinner time is where
families should be talking, and building strong relation-ships. This is a good idea. But in my case
because of my father's personality and food related phobias, our "family table" was not the place
this could happen. Remember, you don't need the family table to talk to your kids. You can talk
to your kids in the family car. I love spending time with my own kids. I don't have to be at a
dinner table. We're all too fat anyway. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that we have dinner
together and chat and enjoy each other's company, but not because Roseanne says I should, but
because it is something that's fun.
Society always tries to hook some gimmick to things that occurred years ago in a very natural
way. In my case my father had more conversations with me in the car than he did at the dinner
table. We always went on long car rides and having conversation was a very natural thing to do. I
have more conversations with my kids in the car and while we are working on projects than I do
at the dinner table. Try talking to your kids without food in your mouth.They might hear what
you're saying a little better.
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