I grew up in a house that used a dinner bell. In fact, I sort of inherited it once we started having children, but it’s not the bell you see above. It was old and falling apart, so at some point we bought this one that you could mount on a wall and had our last name engraved on it.
I derived a great deal of pleasure out of ringing that bell. If someone else was ringing it, the noise was irritating, but if I was the one ringing it, the sound didn’t bother me at all. At any rate, we didn’t use it for anything other than a call to the table for a meal. My mom used to ring it outdoors for us, since we might be somewhere else in the neighborhood at supper time. It was plenty loud and could summon us from where ever we were, within reason. What could be a happier sound than the one that tells you that food is ready to be eaten?
We’d come to the table, sit in our appointed spots, and then grace would either be spoken or sung. Our spoken grace went like this: “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.” The musical grace was sung in a round. There were 8 of us altogether, so this was quite the performance. “For health and strength and daily food, we give Thee thanks O Lord.” It was always fun to be chosen to start the round and for some reason it felt awkward to be the one to finish it. We proceeded to eat and have lively conversation, punctuated with the occasional complaint from one sibling about not getting as many servings as another sibling who was being a PIG. Those kinds of accusations were frowned upon, of course. But mostly there was just a lot of happy chatter.
I sat on my Mom’s right and if I started resting my elbows on the table, she’d poke the nearest one with her fork. Ha ha – that’s table etiquette training for you! I didn’t like peas and found lots of sneaky ways to get out of eating them. Sometimes I put them in my mouth and then, pretending to take a drink, I’d sink them to the bottom of my cup of milk, to be thrown out later surreptitiously. That only worked if the milk wasn’t in a clear glass. Another tried and true method was to put them all in my mouth, and then put my napkin up to my mouth as if to wipe it and proceed to unload the peas into the napkin. I’d crunch the napkin up and either throw it away after the meal, or if I was worried about it being seen, I’d accidentally “drop” the napkin and push it under the radiator to be retrieved later. One time I went back for the napkin, felt under the radiator for it and pulled out a dead mouse. That put an end to THAT method.
Does anybody use a dinner bell anymore? Perhaps it is a lost tradition, along with eating meals together as a family.
I’ll probably spit this blog post out later. It tastes too much like peas, which I’m still not terribly fond of.
Lynniebeemuseoday 