Dear Round Blue and White Tablecloth with the Fringe,
I was thinking a little bit about unsung heroes the other day and maybe this will embarrass you, but honestly – I thought of you.
You were always there. Through so many of our family’s formative years. Covering that table. Catching those spills. Hearing those conversations. Witnessing that laughter. That awkwardness. How many hours of early evening TV did you catch from that little set in the corner? There was golf on weekend afternoons, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune on weekday evenings. The news. Once in awhile in high school I would tiptoe down late at night, turn the TV down low and spread my homework out on your homely, ever present surface.
But maybe what I think of most when I think of your heroics is your fringe. Man – we braided it, twisted it, smoothed it back out again. Awkward conversations, boring dinners and lunches, tense times, weird times – that fringe was there for us. And all the other times, the majority of the times, which were normal, humdrum, sometimes funny sometimes not, sometimes hurried sometimes leisurely, sometimes mildly annoying sometimes mildly heartwarming, we ignored you and you just waited – covering, catching – until we noticed you again.
Don’t ever sell yourself short, Round Blue and White,
-e.