Table Talk

The world begins at a kitchen table.

No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it
will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we
make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at
our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place tocelebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Perhaps the World Ends Here – Joy Harjo

(From “The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems”  by Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate)

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With the windows wide open

“I like to drive with the windows open. I mean, before you know it, you’re going to spend plenty of time sealed up in a box anyway, right?” Tom Magliozzi

The first time I heard Tom and Ray Magliozzi was on a Saturday morning running errands. The car radio was tuned in to WBEZ, Chicago’s public radio station.

Saturday morning and public radio were as much a part of weekends here in Chicagoland as high school football games and caramel/pecan coffee cake from the corner bakery.  As I drove, two guys who, except for their strong Boston accents, talked and laughed and could just as easily been sitting around the kitchen table of my childhood. There they were, on 91.5,  bantering back and forth, one ribbing the other about who was smarter – and they were discussing cars!  Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers; graduates of MIT who managed to engineer a living talking to folks from around the United States about their cars.

As time went on, Car Talk became a Saturday morning ritual.  Cleaners, grocery, softball practice – and Car Talk. Whether making the bed, folding laundry, or heading to a cross-country meet, Car Talk was our conversation of choice. Tom or I would make sure the other was “tuned in” if we weren’t together – and if we were, we laughed out load, puzzled over “The Puzzler”,  and smiled as the audio credits rolled, attributing the show to illustrative talents such as the law firm that represented them. Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.

They were that kind of funny!

Car Talk. A radio talk show as much for women as men.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi reminded me of my father, uncles, and the rest of the gang “discussing” life’s events around the table of my life, while they also taught me a bit about cars and a bit about life as big brother, Tom, and younger brother, Ray, gave folksy advice to listeners calling in, with some armchair therapy along with it.

Tom Magliozzi has passed on to that great garage in the sky. My Tom sent me an email message with the news while I was in a meeting on Monday. That sort of news just couldn’t wait until I returned home, and I know it is one sad bit of news Tom did not want me to hear on the radio, the media that mad the Magliozzi boys famous.

As I read the message,  I swear I could hear Tom Magliozzi’s infectious laugh, the windows to his car wide open, as he entered the Pearly Gates Auto Shop.

Image from Boston Globe via Google. Also on Car Talk website.

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