Family Pictures: Childhood Kitchen Table

Here we are, my brother Ken and I, November 1972. He was turning 1, and I was helping him celebrate at the round oak kitchen table where we shared so many childhood memories. Ken was the non-morning kid who hid behind the cereal box, daring anyone to look at him in the mornings and promptly growling at those who stole a glance. He turned out just great – – I couldn’t ask for a better brother, and we are blessed to be close siblings in adulthood when so many brothers and sisters aren’t. Even though he was the proverbial Grinch of his morning domain as a child, today he is in the top two percent of the most loving and giving adults I know. Kind, smart, and cool under pressure – – a very level-headed person, especially compared to me – – not always kind, not nearly as smart, and certainly not cool under pressure. Level-headed is debatable.

We’ve spent the past year cleaning out our parents’ home of long-held treasures (and some we found in seven storage units that were picked up at estate sales along the way for a retirement plan antique store they never quite got off the ground once Mom got sick). Somehow, I was fortunate enough to end up with our childhood breakfast table, and while not every memory right now with Dad brings warmth because there is a certain amount of anger in all the grief, the table is the ONE piece of furniture I can look at and actually smile and remember nothing but the happy times, including the way my brother grumped to the table in his “footer things,” pajamas with feet, slumped his blanket up in the chair, climbed up and moved “his” cereal box into a shield position like a morning cheerfulness boundary between him and the morning people family he was born into. It was an unspoken rule in our home to look anywhere but in his direction, because he was vigilantly guarding the air space on his side of the table, like a soldier in a trench with a growl gun propped and loaded.

And I think of all the coffee and conversations, decisions, laughter and tears throughout the years.

Table Tanka