Just an Old Table

           I was going to continue with Val’s story - we’re on the second part of chapter 15. But honestly, it’s a very sad story, and I have other memories closer to the front of my heart right now.

          When I was a kid, for as long as I can remember, an antique wooden table sat in my parents’ basement. It was solid, with five chunky legs and a ledge on its underside, perfect for hiding things. My sister Pat and I spent hours at that table, coloring, drawing, or plotting our next adventure. Sometimes friends would come over, and we’d all cluster around the table for snacks or games.

The table really is there under the table cloth and all that stuff. This is the only picture I have it from back then. 

          After Dad died and Mom sold the house, she had no room for the table in her new mobile home, so we brought it to my basement and tucked it in a corner. For a long time, we fed our cats on it and otherwise stored junk on it. Our basement flooded a few times, and those chunky wooden feet cracked; a few of them eventually fell apart.

          When Val bought her second house seven years ago, she finally had a dining room and wanted a cheap table. My parents’ old wooden table, that no longer had much of a finish and only two solid feet, would do just fine. Val and her husband at the time stripped it, stained it, glued the feet back together, and turned it into the beauty it once was. - which was before my time.

          A couple of weeks ago, the table came back home to live with me again. This time, in my dining room, where I plan to love it all over again, for even more reasons than before.