This old table

This old, oak table upon which I begin to type brings with it good ghosts.

I am its inheritor. For more decades than I am old, this table graced my grandparents’ kitchen. When Grandma Toni died at 92, each grandchild was granted one item. I took her table.

True to its age, the table sags a bit in the center and is pirate-ship creaky under the weight of shifted elbows. As far as monetary value, think Goodwill. I doubt guests will find anything pretty about my table. It is pocked and cracked and gashed and chipped, and its leaf does not completely match the connecting sides, as if it was meant to elongate a different table. Guests will not recognize the inner beauty it possesses – from it, fond memories bloom like an eternal bouquet.

I recall my grandfather saying grace at the head of this table, the patriarch’s position, his sitting always signaling the start of Sunday dinners shared. My aunt Rae recalls him eating spinach at this table and then blowing into his thumbs to make his already sturdy arms magically inflate. “He pretended to be Popeye. We were his Olive Oyls,” she says.

I recall my grandmother sitting across from me during our Scrabble wars, until the letter tiles became too tricky to maneuver with her uncooperative, aged fingers. The last time I saw her at this table, I told her I loved her. She replied, “I love you more.” I worry I will never be loved more by anyone again.

My aunt Jane fondly recalls bygone summers at this table with her mother: “We’d cover the table with newspaper and start cleaning strawberries, shelling new peas, and snapping green beans with Mom. Anyone that came in the door just took up a spot at the table, grabbed a pile of beans or peas and joined in the conversation.”

I recall Uncle Dave laughing while reading Funky Winkerbean, the Evansville Courier’s comics spread before him on the tabletop. I loved looking over his shoulder to see what was so funny. Despite the disease that dogged Dave during most of his 36 years, he was the most good-humored of us all. This table taught us to laugh, to make others laugh. “If each of us had a nickel for each time someone laughed while sitting at this table, we would all be wealthy,” says my aunt Carol.

I am the table’s third owner. It was a secondhand table when my grandparents got it in the early 1950s. My grandfather found it in a relative’s trash heap. It remained in their kitchen until 2010. My father and I loaded it upside down onto his pickup’s bed for the 45-minute drive to my house.

Now in my home, this table instills a daily sense of Southern Indiana family, reminding me of living uncles, aunts and cousins galore drawn to this table for holiday meals and Sunday dinners; for the tabletop-pounding euchre games with their one-dollar bets and beer; for conversations shared while drinking coffee and cooing another batch of babies in bouncy seats – the river-town gossip bouncing between the women came as natural to the table as its wood grain.

“The problems of the world were solved at that table,” says my aunt Carol. “There were also a lot of quiet prayers said and requests for prayers made during discussions about family issues. Sitting there discussing our worries, as well as all of our good times, was surely the best counseling any of us needed. There was a lot of love shared around this table.”

This table, which played such a big role in bonding the generations, seems much smaller in my house. From its midpoint, I can stretch my arms in both directions and easily cup both ends in my palms. In hindsight, such reach seems an improbable feat at my grandma’s house, though I know I’m sitting at the same table.

The table’s fresh presence in my home forewarns that we are becoming a family scattered. Grandma Toni was our blood magnet. Her house, as a central hub, possessed a gravitational pull essential to the big family gathering, though in all practicality, we had outgrown her house years ago. Her house, built by my grandfather in the 1940s, is empty, its contents scattered among scattered family. A for-sale sign is staked in her yard. We are now a family that will likely gather in more meaningful quantities only during weddings and funerals.

My aunt Sandy wonders, “Has anyone ever pondered just how many different people sat at that table? Not just family and extended family, but those not related to us, too? The number would have to be phenomenal.”

Upon final reflection, she adds, “The table was always a place of joy and laughter.”

So here I sit, sensing joy and laughter as I tap at these laptop keys to the beat of my table’s heartwood, channeling a spirit trio comprised of my grandfather, grandmother, and uncle. I’m happy to host these beloved ghosts, despite the lump in my throat.

I think too about my living relatives. While we will not collectively meet up as much as before, each family member remains a part of this table’s grain. I never know who might pay a visit when I sit here.

I’m the proud, new keeper of an important, old table.

Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com. Purchase Scott’s latest book, “Vietnam War Love Story: The Love Letters of Bill and Nancy Young (1967)” on Amazon. It makes for a great holiday gift.