The world wakes up now electronically. The gentle hum of the computer, the alarm clock set to music, the beeping or vibration of a cell phone. Long-ago,(when dinosaurs roamed the earth or so, my grandkids like to tell me. I used to wake up to my Mother shaking my foot gently and telling me “Mary Anne, wake up. It’s time to wake up now.”
Then she would go and wake up my sisters much in the same way. I would wake to the smell the coffee percolating on the stove. I still remember the coffee pot; it was glass so you could watch it as Mother warmed it up, turn from clear liquid to brown. There was no Starbucks, no exotic coffee to sip. Simply the home coffee, made by my mother (and drinkable) When Daddy made it, you couldn’t drink it. Daddy was retired from the Navy; his coffee was thick and dark like mud!
My father would already be at the bar when I arrived in the kitchen. Now he is NOT an alcoholic, that is where we ate breakfast and lunch every day, on the bar (a big curved counter in the kitchen with bar stools) He wouldn’t have an IPOD, a Smartphone, or even a personal computer. He would have the newspaper waiting for him to read but only while he waited for breakfast. After the food arrived, he would fold the paper up and put it aside. My sister and I, we would read the back of the cereal boxes.
Mother made wonderful waffles and pancakes, her eggs were divine. There were no EGGO’s or Egg-Beaters. It was all just simple, homemade food. I may have inherited some things from her, but her breakfast skills – I did not. To this day I can’t cook an egg like she did.
The three of us girls, we knew that at the bar, or at the dining room table where we always had dinner together, we had to be respectful. There was no shouting, no reaching for food. No elbows on the table, no chewing with our mouths open. We grew up with manners and knew that if we slipped up, there would be repercussions.
Food was always passed. If you wanted something, you had to ask. “Excuse me, would you pass the salt?” You couldn’t interrupt a conversation. This ritual was our way of connecting and staying connected to each other. It was our hive.
At the end of the meal, you had to ask to be excused. I can still hear the sounds of the chairs scraping back, the gathering of our plates, silverware and glasses. We knew that if there were other empty plates at the table, it was our job to take them to the kitchen and rinse them out. But still, we were taught well: “Excuse me? Are you done with your plate? May I take it to the kitchen?”
Today, the art of eating together at home is almost extinct. Now there are fast foods, meals gobbled on the fly. Kids scream for attention in the local fast food restaurants, especially kids with parents who are on their cell phones or Smartphone’s. There are elbows on the tables, mouths flying open when eating, people grabbing items and kids running down the aisles. To add to this insanity, McDonalds provides a playground for kids already amped up on sugar and carbs.
At home (according to a recent survey) most families eat meals sitting in front of the television or computer. No one looks at each other anymore or talks to one another. It is dry-erase calendar or a personal computer or cell phone in the home that becomes the hive.
My husband likes to say that if you take away our batteries, we will become a nation of idiots. Einstein once said “It has become appalling obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” He said this in 1929. I wonder what he would say about our technology in the world of today?”
-Mary Anne Miller-
