Can We Talk 2

A Proper Table Service

         Heaven help me. I don't come from an elegant family, full of grace and good table manners. There are some things, however, that seem like they should be common knowledge, but don't make the grade with most folks. Number one, where does the napkin go during the meal?

         I put my napkin in my lap. I once ate a fancy hotel in the state capitol where the waiter went to each person at the table and put the napkin in your lap for you. That felt a little personal to me. I can overlook men failing to do this, or remembering when the meal is half over. You make allowances for men (they can't live up to the standards of women). I've been surprised how many women do not observe this custom. I suppose everything changes with time and common usage.

         I discovered after college that I had always placed my knife incorrectly on my plate during a meal. So I started observing at home. My mother automatically placed her knife on the back of the plate, completely off the table. My father, on the other hand, rested the blade on his plate and the handle on the table. So how did my brothers and I do it? Like my dad. We followed his lazy example. But then I wondered why my mother had never thought to tell us that her way was proper and that we should do it like her. I asked. She was taught to do it that way but hadn't realized why, or that it was "proper", so it never occurred to her that we should do it the same way she did it.

         Then I became aware that women with good paying jobs and good educations didn't know how to set a table. They'd put the forks in the wrong place and other terrible things like that. Didn't they have any class at all? My mom came from a poor family, but she was strict about placing our every day silverware in the proper places. She may have learned some of that in Home Ec, or maybe her family. If I recall correctly, both my grandmothers set the table by the book, Even my poor relatives in the country did not vary from what I learned as a child.

         It may be that the method, the tradition, was a way of defining who we are, a reminder that we are civilized, of proving we fit in society. It doesn't seem like a class thing, as much as a connection to the past, to civility, to the proper behavior of the community.

         Today, it just doesn't seem to matter. I've given up at family gatherings. It's just too much trouble doing all the cleaning, cooking, and making things proper and pretty for people who would just as soon eat out of paper and use plastic utensils. At the same time, I want to take my little great nieces and my little nephew and teach them how to set the table, where to put the napkins. Even if they never use it, at least they'll know how.