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Family For A Day

January 14, 2008

Okay, so I am that old. I remember when our family first got a tv. My mother, being up-to-date, set places for the kids at the coffee table, where we sat on the floor and ate while, in the days of only three stations, we watched Queen for a Day. My father, who could hear the show from the dining room, kept up a running critique of what he called the sob stories. (Women, often in tears, would tell the sad tales of their lives. The audience applauded; the winner went home with a washer or a refrigerator.)

I don't think it took my parents long to regret our new dinnertime companions, and soon we were back to eating at the table, where they could speak to us, and to each other, directly, without having to compete with a master of ceremonies. They gave us the Sally-and-Saul version of the world, with its own tragedies, kindnesses and rewards, as filtered through discussions of what each of us had done during the day.

When we're passing the pot roast, we are surely not thinking about passing along values; yet the little stories we tell each other shape our view of the world.

Everyday dinners are definitely not Hollywood. Still, every evening, we act out our own continuing saga. It is called Family For A Day.

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