nights when we played The Rhyming Game, or Puck, a hockey of the hands with a milkbottle cap, or Dad made Clown Sundaes, or told funny stories, or invented games, word games, games of love, Mom laughing and abashed, proud and alarmed at her brood. In the best of times.
Which is where we will start.
With the December night in 1952, Dad hatched a clever way to teach us table manners. (We have it in writing.) I like to imagine how it came about.
Long Live the Milkman
The swinging dining room door squeaks on its hinges and through it comes pudgy fourteen-year-old Mary Kay in snug, flour-dusty dungarees. Her hair—a clumsy-curled banister-brown page boy—hangs limply, and her pointy black cat-eye glasses are slipping down her nose. She lugs the ungainly half-gallon glass bottle of milk as if it were a baby on her hip and fills each bright aluminum tumbler.
“Everybody wash your ha-yands,” she calls. No response. “Pineapple cake for dessert,” she adds. Pogo, twelve, and Tom, ten, thunder down the stairs, muscling into the tiny half-bath, grinding powdery Borax hand soap into their dirty-from-dirt hands. Three-year-old Skip (John’s childhood nickname) tries to nudge his way in. I’m ready to go into my high chair.
With one small reddened bird-ish hand, Mom plucks up her Pall Mall, takes a drag, stubs it out on discolored melamine. She hefts the boiling stockpot to the sink and dumps it, draining the egg noodles, then coats them in margarine and poppy seeds. One delicate wrist pushes an errant strand of cocoa hair from her steam-filled dark eyes. She straightens up, resecures it in her Lucy poodle-updo, and tugs the bow of the organdy apron tied round her slim waist. Dad’s home for dinner.
In fact, he’s smiling a few feet away, shaking the silver bullet, and pouring their first nightly round of martinis on olives and ice.
He still looks good at thirty-nine, though strain is stamped around his eyes. It has taken months to recover from last year’s heart attack.
But he’s back at work now, writing and delivering two radio broadcasts a day. He can stand proudly at the head of the dining room table.
Before him, like symbols in a saint painting: a stack of plates, a steaming pot roast, and ravenous young faces.
“Betty, you found the carving fork!”
“St. Anthony suggested looking behind the stove and there it was,” says Mom, sipping from her icy glass.
“Who’s Sainanthony?” asks Skip. His booster seat is Webster’s Unabridged, as it was and will be for us all.
“The patron saint of lost objects. We pray to him when we lose something and he helps us find it.”
Crish, crish. Dad hones the long knife on a steel, slices and plates the fragrant gelatinous meat. Each plate passes from hand to hand to Mom for noodles, salad, and green beans.
Pogo, dark and darting king of imps, nimble of body and mind, pinches a nibble as the last plate goes by. He, too, is nearly recovered. He fractured his skull in the fall of that cardiac year and had to lay low for six weeks.
“Pogo! We haven’t said Grace!”
“Grace is Gramma’s name,” offers Tom, ever aware of relationships. He’s as blond as Pogo is dark, as conscientious as Pogo is spontaneous.
“But, Mommo, it’s Grrrreaat!” roars Pogo.
“No commercials at the table. And please don’t eat with your fingers. Where are your manners?”
“Ask Saint Anthony,” Mary Kay quips.
Dad leads the Sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Then Grace before Meals: “Bless us oh Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The instant it’s over, the cutlery clatters.
“Mary Kay, please change your fork to your right hand and put your knife down before you take a bite.” Mom is on the job. “Don’t slurp, Pogo. Please.”
“How was the birthday party, Tom?” asks Dad.
“The sleigh ride was great—”
“Dad, is it a sin to kill a man if he pays you to do it?”
“Pogo, please don’t interrupt.”
“Like I said—”
“As I said, Tom.”
“You just interrupted!”
“That’s enough, Pogo,” Dad warns. “What were you saying, Tom?”
“I got pushed off five times, but I got hot revenge!”
“He spit on me! Ick!”
“He didn’t mean to, Mary Kay. Tom, please don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“Home, home on the Range,” Skip is singing, skiing his beef through his noodles.
“Please, no singing at the table, Skipper, and no playing with your food.”
“Irene’s blobbing everywhere.”
“She’s a baby. You’re a big boy now. You dressed yourself today, remember?”
“Pogo, elbows off the table, please.”
“Can I have some more milk?”
“You may get it yourself. Tom, if you want the salt, ask your brother politely. No boardinghouse reach.”
“He was hogging it.” A punch to the arm.
“Ow! Quit it!”
“Boys!” Mom is frazzling. “What did you all do in school today?”
“Get me some milk, too, Pogo.”
“Please,” Mom suggests.
“Me too, please,” says Mary Kay.
“No fair! Get your own!”
“We saw two movies, one about teeth and one on how to catch a cold.”
“So is it a sin, Dad?”
“Words draw pictures,” Mom says. “A sin to catch a cold?”
“Crimes are sins,” says Mary Kay. “We had The Chief of Crime Prevention today. Did you know there are thirty-three crimes every day in Minneapolis? But he said television means more people are staying home, so not so many break-ins.”
“Kracked-head Barrel, I was talking!”
“Pogo! Don’t call your sister that!”
“She doesn’t care, do you, Kakes?”
