I spent the bulk of my life in two houses; the house that I lived in, and my grandparent's house. Although there were many differences between the houses, there was one thing that was very similar. The kitchen was the center of the house and the kitchen table was the center of the kitchen. so, in odd ways, there were a couple of kitchen tables that were the centers of my universe growing up.
Like many places where we spend time in our lives, kitchen tables had rules that had to be recognized and honored. There was a seating chart, although never discussed or written down. There was an aging process that let you have more access and authority at the table as you grew older and hopefully wiser. But no matter what your social lot at the table it was the place to be. At that table decisions were made and any information to be shared with others arrived there first.
I remember a Saturday morning at my grandparents home when the table was truly the center of everything. Grandpa and Grandma had bought an Appaloosa foal from some people in Minnesota when they'd visited family up there. Midnight Surprise was one of the prettiest horses that I'd ever seen. She also had a wonderful disposition. Grandpa put a lot of time and energy into training her and by the morning that I am remembering, she had been around for a year or so.
Some people were interested in buying Surprise and they had come that morning to work out the deal. There were a couple of sessions of coffee at the kitchen table, and in between those, they spent time out looking at Surprise. As guests, the potential buyers were given room at the table and those of us who were typically there were pushed to the far side of the counter. But even with that, we got to watch. As the morning progressed, it became obvious that there would be a sale. The potential buyers wanted Surprise, and my grandfather never owned a horse that he wouldn't sell for the right price. That morning, the right price was a thousand dollars. In a time where you could go to the sale barn and buy a good pony for fifty or sixty dollars, this was huge, and it all played out, right there in front of us. Years later, my grandmother had told me that the sale of Surprise was the first time that they had ever had a savings account. This was a moment in time where many things changed. It all happened around the kitchen table.
The kitchen table in my house was multi-faceted, but was again the center of the house. It could be a place to have dinner and talk about the day, a place to play cards with friends on a Saturday night, or a place to do homework and projects. It was all of these things. It was also the place where you knew trouble was coming your way if you were summoned there. Of course, you always knew that was the case because you were called by your entire name - first, middle, and last. This was the kitchen table that I grew up around, and if you asked my kids, was probably very similar to the one that they grew up around. I'm confident that they grew tired of the question, "What was the best part of your day?"
I think part of what we struggle with today is that we have lost the concept of the kitchen table. Watch people when you are out and about. How many times do you see two people in a restaurant at a table together, both on their mobile device. Walk across a college campus. Everyone is in their own world. Talk to friends about what dinner time looks at in the home today. Does it involve ear buds? This is just the little corner of the world that we can see. The time was that our leaders would get together and talk. I am just not sure that is the case anymore.
In the last week or so, I actually talked with someone that told me the goal of a conversation today is to figure out what you are going to say next, rather than engage in a dialogue. Have we come to a time when it is mostly two people talking at each other, not talking together?
This is why we need kitchen tables. In our house, when company arrives, we still have a tendency to sit at the kitchen table and just talk. It's a great way to share ideas and come up with plans.
I wonder if this would help some of the rhetoric that we hear today? Could it help if people could sit down in a comfortable, safe place, get to know each other, and talk? What do you think?
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