More Than Just Four Legs

Growing up, I never gave much thought to our table. When you are young, you tend to take it all for granted. It sits in the dining room, there are chairs around it, and it’s the “meeting place” for almost all occasions where two or more are gathered in the house. Food was not necessarily the only thing that the table was set with – it was homework, paying bills, playing cards, and jigsaw puzzles. 

Some of my earliest recollections are at the table. It was where we sat when my single mom came home from work; it was where my Gran, who lived with us, always had some home-cooked meal waiting for us all; it was where my Gran spoiled me by always having spaghetti sauce in the freezer that let me avoid eating whatever home-cooked meal she was serving to everyone else. Most times we sat at it and sometimes we sat under it. Sometimes it was a makeshift collection of picnic tables, dining tables, and card tables, all linked together when more room was needed for the “two or more.” It was a lot of things.

I am older now and I have sat at a plethora of tables – small, large, wobbly, cheap, expensive – and they all have one common factor; it’s not the construction of the table that matters, it’s everything that took place leading up to you being there. My Gran taught me this.  

She grew up on a farm in South Dakota, the oldest of 5 children. While some kids have dogs or cats as pets, she had a team of four horses. She loved those gentle giants. She could handle them as well as any man by the time she was 13. Their farm was large and they often hired farmhands, but she was the one that drove the team.

They grew wheat as the main money crop, but everything they ate was grown there as well. Once, when she was a bit older, she and her team scooped out a very large irrigation pond. The pond provided water for the garden and the cows and was also stocked with catfish. This was where her table began. You work the land, you grow the food, and you serve your family, friends, and your hired hands the fruit of your labor – the table was the culmination of all you had put your hands to. To this day, there is nothing more rewarding than sitting down to dinner and being greeted by a table full of food you grew with your own hands – it all comes full circle.

Most farmers in the 1920’s-1930’s were not rich. You worked to eat and you ate so that you could work. What went on the table reflected this. My Gran made the best of this, utilizing everything and making things stretch. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned that grated potatoes in taco meat were not a normal ingredient, but it did make one pound of hamburger feed a multitude of people when they came and sat at her table. I still have to make them this way, otherwise, they just don’t seem to taste quite right. They served blood sausage on the farm, too, but I’m okay with leaving that one off the table. 

In 1933, near Christmas time I was told, that my Gran and her husband sold the farm, packed up their things, and gathered family to head to the promised land of California – it was easier to set a table there. They were told there’s lots of work there and they need you. The weather is better there for farming and for life in general, they were told. When they crossed the border into California, they stopped and threw away all their long underwear – back in South Dakota you put it on at Thanksgiving and pretty much lived in it until Easter. All the things they were told about California did not necessarily come to pass, but they survived better than most who migrated there, over the next two decades. They always had a table to sit at. 

I have refinished a variety of furniture pieces over the years and tables have to be one of my favorites; that nice, flat top is easy to work with. Some of my sanding has made me ponder just what it was that caused that stain or mark – if it was a table previously unknown to me, it was a chance to create imaginative scenarios while I worked. If it was one of mine, it was a chance to reminisce: those scratch marks on the back leg, that was Sadie, a sweetheart of a cat that was dumped off at our farm by someone who thought farms were a great place to dump cats; that triangular dent on the top, that’s where the wire cutters landed when I was installing an antique light over the table and THOUGHT I had turned the power off but had not. Some tables, however, just can’t be saved.

Unspeakable things happened at my Gran’s table over the years in California, things that could not be fixed or salvaged. So in the early 1950s, she and her brood of children (some grown with children of their own) left California and the unfixable marriage and ended up in Oregon. My mom was the oldest child, with two of her own, and they bought a house together. That is how it came to be that I was blessed to be born and raised at the table of my Gran. 

It was not a fancy table, but they took pride in what it represented. The fruit of their labor owned that house and what was put on the table was confirmation that they had finally found a place to call home. It was where the extended family gathered for Thanksgiving feasts, so many filling my Gran’s and mom’s home that they improvised by setting up picnic tables, dining room tables, and card tables so we could all be seated together – together was important. I remember one Thanksgiving, all of us littles were sitting at one end and I asked someone to pass a roll. Literally, a roll was passed 2 yards to the right, then lobbed 4 yards ahead and landed directly in my glass of milk. I thought myself so clever when I remarked, “This is the crummiest milk I’ve ever had!”

I watched my single mom do her taxes at that table and saw the look of accomplishment in her eyes when she discovered that she had finally grossed five figures. I remember her making the very last mortgage payment on that house and could see what a relief it was for her to have that debt paid off. I remember her contagious laughter around the table on Saturday nights when my aunt and uncle would come over. They would play pinochle for hours and tell tall tales about their fishing exploits, or talk about the old days, that seemed so hard and far away, but nonetheless, had left them with memories of good times.  

My very favorite time at our family table, though, happened every summer and took all year to set. We were a fishing family, particularly catfish, and any time anyone caught catfish, they would bring them to my Gran. She would clean and skin them and keep them in the freezer until that one, fabulous Saturday at the end of summer. Our catfish fry was practically famous among those who knew us. Electric frying pans would be set up in the garage, and my Gran and her trustworthy crew would fry catfish – never less than 100 every year. Other great foods would be brought to share and all were welcome. No matter if you were a relative, a friend, or an ex-husband, this was an inclusive “table.” It was a virtual table as well, how else do you seat 50+ people in your backyard?!

When evening time came, the real dining room table would be pushed aside, and out would come guitars and voices and lively music. It was impossible to sit still so the dining room became a dance floor that didn’t hold many and was always in motion. Needless to say, when you are young and the dancers are tall, the dance floor is not the safest place to be! So under the table is where we would end up, not wanting to miss out on anything. 

That spot under the table kept us safe while we watched the rest of the family, dancing and playing music. I am not sure if I could fit under a table that comfortably now, but the table will always bring to mind the very core of my Gran’s legacy. It provided a place of comfort that held up the traditions of my family: hard work, determination, sacrifice, and open arms. It was a stable place for life to be laid out. It has always been and will always be much more than just four legs. The things that sustain and nourish us are not always things to eat that are served on plates. 

Liana writes about herself, “‘Hug your loved ones, be thankful for them and the breath of life you have, don’t sweat the small stuff, choose to be kind to everyone, don’t take for granted all that you have, exercise your “smile muscles” more often, laugh in the face of danger, be at peace with who you are, trust in the Lord with all your heart, never quit, be relentless in your pursuit of goodness, be selfless, not self-centered, walk in humility, and love your neighbor as yourself. Life is fleeting – one day we are here and the next day we may not be – make them count!’