"Build Your History and Live It Joyfully"

Read an Excerpt from my soon-to-be released book: Chapter 2: "Something Sacred Happens at the Dinner Table"

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Company was coming for dinner and I was in search of the meatiest ham in the store’s meat cooler to serve to my guests. My shopping cart already held the sliced pineapple and maraschino cherries that would dress the ham to the nines. I pushed and shoved the hams around in the cooler as though I was hunting for a gold treasure. That was exactly what I wanted – the best and most impressive ham ever. When I found it, and placed it into the cart, I was shocked to see that the fake acrylic nail on the index finger of my right hand was missing. Heavens to Murgatroyd! My aggressive ham-pushing obviously put too much pressure on the nail, even though scientific UV rays had changed it into some sort of cement, which would last for at least two weeks. I panicked! Any perfectionist would panic, knowing how weird their hand would look sitting at a dinner table, missing a beautifully shaped red fingernail. Panting, because I was out of breath from tossing and rolling around every ham in the cooler, I quickly envisioned myself sitting at the head of the table, lifting my water glass to my lips with everyone’s eyes seeing a missing nail. Then I thought, if I could find the nail, I might be able to super glue it back on.

It didn’t matter that the meat cooler was deep and cold and my hands were already cold with a shade of blue. The numbness was trivial. I had to find that nail. I dived back into the cooler, frantically searching, but it was useless. I was no better off than someone searching for a small bolt in a scrapyard filled with thousands of banged-up cars and rusted sheet metal. But then, the thought came that I may have lost the nail in the produce department while rummaging through un-shucked ears of corn. At the corn ben, I was in that same anxious spirit, searching for the most beautiful, most luscious ears. Nothing wrong with wanting the best, but it wasn’t the ham and the corn that was full of pride, it was me. I whipped my cart around and rolled it over to the corn ben. No one needed to know I was searching for a fingernail, not if I made it look legit that I needed more corn. That search was useless, too. The fake nail was lost somewhere in that store, and most likely would be a shudder of ick to whomever discovered it.

Somehow, the dinner turned out okay because no one was examining my hands. Before they arrived, I managed to find a bottle of red fingernail polish and did my best to make the finger look like it fit in with the rest, although the nail was much shorter. My guests enjoyed themselves and the conversations were good. The best part of the dinner was the fellowship we shared with warm camaraderie around the table. Secretly, my pride was being marched to the guillotine, as I realized what really mattered was the sacred something that happed at that table. . . .

. . . .Growing up in Detroit, my parents rented-out a little house that was built on our property behind our family house. Most neighbors had their garage there. Instead, we had a four-room house with one bathroom. An old lady I called Aunt Laura and her middle-aged single son, Oliver rented that little house. My Mom and Aunt Laura shared the backyard and the clothesline on certain days of the week. There were often times when Oliver was not at home, so Aunt Laura would knock on our back door and visit with us. One day she came to our door while my mom was cooking spaghetti for supper. Now, you need to know that my mom’s spaghetti was far from Italian cuisine, however, the delicious aroma filled our house and created anxious appetites. The recipe was simple. A mixture of browned hamburger and chopped onion, soft boiled spaghetti pasta, and Campbell’s tomato soup. I loved it. So, on with the story of Aunt Laura coming to our door late that afternoon and sitting down at our kitchen table. She talked to my mom while the aroma of fried hamburger and chopped onions filled our small kitchen. I loved to sit and listen to this old lady. She was a tiny woman whose head and hands shook very badly. She had developed what medical science call an essential tremor that was common and nothing to worry about. I never saw someone so notoriously skilled at handling a cup of coffee while shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm, and not spill any of it. That day, when Mom was ready to call us to the table, she asked Aunt Laura if she would like to stay and have supper with us. I can still hear her happy voice when she said, “oh, yes”, and added, “I do love baghetti.” I put my hands over my mouth and choked back laughing, because I saw my mother’s stern face looking at me, silently saying, don’t you dare laugh at how she pronounces spaghetti. Believe me, you had to be there, seeing this old lady’s head bobbing back and forth and hearing the word “baghetti” coming from her lips. For years later, my brother and I would laugh and call our spaghetti dinners, baghetti dinners. But it wasn’t just the word that gave us fun and laughter, it was the closeness we had with this precious old woman. We felt the holy thing that happens around the table when you eat and break bread together. I came to love Aunt Laura dearly.

Other renters came and went, and there were other times when coffee and cookies were shared with them, even a fun table game like Chinese Checkers. (Oh yes, Aunt Laura played Chinese Checkers with us and often the marbles rolled all over the board when it was her turn. I dared not laugh then, either.) There were occasions when around the kitchen table renters would tell of their troubles and my Godly parents would do what they could to help solve their problem. The table seemed to be a sacred place. Not exactly like my dad’s pulpit at our church, where he fed the gospel message to the attenders, but a place where people sat and experienced a little bit of help and heaven. Indeed, dear old Aunt Laura and others were graciously taken into my parents loving care during their lonely and needy hours, which brings up the point that many people today are not as fortunate as these renters were, having people in their lives like my parents. Today many hungry souls slip by unnoticed and unwanted in a busy world that tops more than eight billion people. It might shock us to know how many people in the US are hungry for something other than food. Something more than a kitchen table and a shared cup of coffee, but rather someone genuinely interested in them, but that’s another chapter in this book.

It was not just Aunt Laura who made history in my life during the years I was a kid growing up in a crowded Detroit neighborhood, but two other neighbors who lived in the house next door. Strange, that they never knew us. They were the Italians, fresh from the shores of Italy, struggling with the English language. The hermits of the neighborhood. I don’t remember my parents having much to do with them because they chose to be recluse. But what made history about them in my life was their garden and the wonderful smell of simmering tomatoes that came through their screened kitchen door. Their garden reached from their back porch all the way to the alley behind the neighborhood, and luscious tomatoes covered their plot of earth. They staked the heavy plants using scraps of torn cloth and picked ripened tomatoes all summer long. The most wonderful smells of bubbling stewed tomatoes, most likely thickening into a thick tomato garlic-basil sauce, wafted its way into our backyard and sometimes through our screened kitchen door. I would have helped pick and peel tomatoes for the chance to sit at their table and eat. They never knew how much I loved the wonderful smells that came from their kitchen. I should have told them, because they created a small part in my personal history.

*To read the full chapter, keep watch for the launch date of this new book: "Build Your History and Live It Joyfully"