{"id":2327,"date":"2012-10-30T11:32:24","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T17:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/?p=2327"},"modified":"2023-07-20T21:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T21:00:06","slug":"table-manners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/table-manners\/","title":{"rendered":"Table Manners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda has been on a mission of late; to rid our house of \u201cstuff\u201d that hasn\u2019t seen the light of day in years. She goes on these tangents occasionally. They\u2019re usually brought on by anger and frustration over having to move a mountain of boxes to get at something stored deep in the bowels of the basement closet under the stairs. Or if\u00a0 she wants something\u00a0she thinks is in the bottom container of a tall stack of containers teetering precariously in the laundry room next to the downstairs fridge. \u201cWhy do we have all this crap?\u201d I hear her holler from the nether regions as I relax in my big upstairs living room chair with\u00a0remote in\u00a0hand adjusting the volume upward so she doesn\u2019t drown out the sound of \u201cThis Old House\u201d on TV; one of the many \u201chow to\u201d shows I regularly watch from a reclining position but put to no practical use in real life. I know when she\u2019s coming upstairs because her basement allergies have set off a distractingly loud series of sneezing. When she appears at my chair and looks at me with her itchy red eyes, I hit the\u00a0pause button and fully expect her to give me a much deserved arse chewing for being such an insensitive, unhelpful, lazy oaf. But, instead, she smiles and hands me some items.. things she\u2019s salvaged from boxes destined for the Goodwill or Salvation Army; including this picture of the Keloland TV news staff in the late 80\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"Recognize

Recognize any of these folks? Jaine Andrews (top row second from left) and me are the only two people in the photo still on the Kelo payroll.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhy are you so determined to go through these things now?\u201d I asked. \u00a0\u201cBecause I don\u2019t want our kids to face the same situation as what we\u2019re dealing with at mom\u2019s.” she replied.<\/p>\n

Mother Mary Trudeau passed away late last summer in the Alcester nursing home just a few blocks away from the house where she and Len raised 8 children. It wasn\u2019t until after she died that her family realized just how much stuff she\u2019d accumulated in that house over 65 years and have to decide what to do with it all. The big items like furniture and appliances weren\u2019t a problem; they were claimed by and distributed among all the siblings and grand siblings amicably. But there was..and still are..drawers and boxes stuffed with things that Linda and her family must determine whether\u00a0is trash or treasure. \u201cIt\u2019s been physically and mentally exhausting, she says, and I\u2019m determined to spare our kids from having to make those kinds of decisions after we\u2019re gone.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

To be fair, I have offered to help but I think Linda knows she wouldn\u2019t get rid of much if I did; too attached to things even though I\u2019d forgotten they existed. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m a candidate for \u201cHoarders\u201d but the sight of some old object can trigger memories that distract me for hours; making me reluctant to let go. I am being pressured, and rightly so, to make a decision on clearing my bedroom closet which is crammed full of suits and shirts and shoes. I still have delusions that I\u2019m going to one day lose weight and wear them all again even if they haven\u2019t been in style for 20 years.<\/p>\n

One of the things from Mother Mary\u2019s house that Linda had no qualms about requesting was the ornate oak table that was used as a living room TV stand.<\/p>\n

\"They

They always called it the library table<\/p><\/div>\n

It will be assuming a similar place of prominence at our place. My lovely wife has finally convinced me, her old stick-in-the-mud hubby, that after 17 years, it\u2019s time we changed the look of our little dwelling which means relocating the oak table and chairs that came from MY boyhood home. They will\u00a0 now be the focal point of our rarely used front room which is being converted into a formal dining room.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad we got that table when the family divvied up the Lund estate. I\u2019m flooded with nostalgia every time I look at it.<\/p>\n

\"table<\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0 where my brothers and I all had our birthday parties. Mom would put in both leaves to make room for everybody and everything; cousins, friends, loads of food including a lamb-shaped birthday cake lovingly created by Aunt Leila and, of course, a few presents that were not to be opened until after we ate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was on that table where mom served up the best roast beef, ham, chicken and turkey dinners (sometimes at the same meal) ever consumed by mankind. Guests would go on and on about how delicious everything tasted while mom, with typical Norwegian humility,\u00a0\u00a0would reluctantly accept the complements but be sure and\u00a0point out her perceived culinary shortcomings. It was at that table that my cousin Grouse and I would nearly explode from holding back laughter when dining with Uncle Conrad, who straddled a fine line between coherence and dementia for years and never failed to tell the same two jokes before every meal. Jokes that were too corny for Reader\u2019s Digest. He\u2019d hold up a napkin and ask, you know what they call this don\u2019t you? Mistake Paper!..and he\u2019d roar. \u00a0So would Grouse and I but we were laughing AT..not with him. Shame on us.<\/p>\n

It was\u00a0at that table where I did my homework..although I don\u2019t ever remember doing much homework. But it was there that mom tried desperately to drill Sunday School memory work through my thick head.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I also recall her sitting alone at that table for hours on end with her hands at the keys of an old, old typewriter. She was practicing up her long idle typing skills learned at secretarial school when in her teens, so she could help dad at his new job working for Farmer\u2019s Mutual Insurance.<\/p>\n

I was amazed at how fast it all came back to her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was at that table that dad would set up the movie projector to show the films from our latest trip to Yellowstone or Canada to invited company who\u2019d just consumed one of mom\u2019s big meals. Exciting as those home movies were it was tough to remain alert and awake even with my father\u2019s stirring narration.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0at that table where the projector was eventually\u00a0replaced with a breathing machine which kept the suffocating effects of the old man\u2019s emphysima at bay for couple years.<\/p>\n

It was also on that table\u00a0where mom displayed all the sympathy cards received after dad gave up the fight and took his last breath.<\/p>\n

There, now you see why Linda can\u2019t count on this sentimental old slug to be of any use whatsoever in saying goodbye to stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda has been on a mission of late; to rid our house of \u201cstuff\u201d that hasn\u2019t seen the light of day in years. She goes on these tangents occasionally. They\u2019re usually brought on by anger and frustration over having to move a mountain of boxes to get at something stored deep in the bowels of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11695,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327\/revisions\/11695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}