In the years after college, military service and other finishing-off exercises of youth, half my college roommates emigrated to San Francisco from the east. California dreaming, they lit out for the Bay Area, the siren call of the Mommas and the Poppas in their ears. They did not heed Scott McKenzie’s notion that they put flowers in their hair, since they were conventional Easterners. More likely, they rolled a little weed into their Zig Zag papers. For them, San Francisco was a comfortable place to land – California with some New England vinegar.
Grif, a Robert Redford doppelganger, was one of these emigrants. In college he played Varsity soccer and was a member of the Rugby Club. His yearbook blurb claims he won the coveted Lagerhof-Kaka Award in Scandinavian Languages. Total ka-ka. Grif never took a language. There never has been such an award. He felt he should have something academic to show for four years and edited his entry. Like me, he was familiar with the comfortable upholstered chairs in the Sterling Memorial Library, cozy nooks for snoozing on a bleak winter’s day in New Haven. In San Francisco his apartment on Telegraph Hill was a fine place to crash. Sundays, Grif and the other eastern expatriates gathered on the deck of the Buena Vista Restaurant in the Marina district to savor Ramos Gin Fizzes. Buskers performed on the green below. One busker wore a cardboard packing box over his head with a cut-out flap in front. If you fed a dollar bill into a slit in the box front, he would pop the flap open and play a tune on his trumpet.
Grif had a tie and coat job for a time. But he itched to do something creative. He opened a store on Union Street called Dovetail, that sold Bay Area artisans’ works. He took a course in woodworking at a junior college, rented a space to do his own woodwork, and a craftsman was born. He added assistants and produced bespoke hand-crafted furniture, display cases, and even church interior work. Over time, long winter hours working in unheated spaces took its toll. Arthritis claimed his hands.
As we both trundled near what was likely our last decade, I asked him to make a round breakfast table for me. He could no longer grip the woodworking tools, so it was likely fashioned by an assistant. I know he carefully selected the wood from his treasured stash of aged, cured lumber stacked against a studio wall. The table now stands in the corner of our apartment, where My Life’s Editor and I sit for breakfast, looking out over Tampa Bay. It is made of golden-brown Koa wood from Hawaii. The warm light of the chandelier makes its surface glow. “Koa” means “warrior” in Hawaiian and often, over the rim of my coffee cup, I admire the grain and remember the indominable Grif.
When we were young married folk, our breakfast table was oak, as were many items in our apartment and then our house. Auction houses and secondhand stores provided a cornucopia of oak – old pie safes, bookshelves, steamer trunks, and ice boxes with brass latches. These have lost their charm. Our kids regard them as quaint, best used as firewood.
Breakfast is a sacrament at the Craigs. The breakfast table is the altar for rituals involving information exchange and food. Early in our marriage, we divvied up the sections of the Chicago Daily News. I took the sports section. It was 1969 and Ron Santo, Billy Williams, et al were leading the beloved Cubs into a disastrous September collapse. Casey Stengel’s Mets galloped past them. As I read, I was vaguely aware of sounds. Huh? Was someone talking? “You’re not listening!,” said a voice. An irritated voice. My beloved was talking to me. In fact, she had been talking to me for some time. She was not pleased. I learned one of married life’s commandments: “When addressed by your beloved at the breakfast table, thou shalt put down thy paper, book, or iPad and pay attention, or there will be uncomfortable marital sledding ahead.”
I love breakfast. The sight of a fried egg (just a bit of yolk running, thank you), nestled between two strips of extra crisp bacon, a couple slices of multi-grain toast attendant on the plate, slathered in butter, a dollop of raspberry jam at the ready, puts me in heaven. Then there is coffee, presiding over the whole business, steaming, with maybe a light touch of half and half. Yum. Some readers may run screaming from the room at this point, gurgling about hearts, plaque and arteries. Non breakfast eaters may wince and stay where they are.
There is more to say about eggs. I lean into the refrigerator in the early evening and see fewer items inside than in a hockey player’s bridgework. I whine, “What are we going to have to eat tonight?” Herself says,” I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.” Enter the omelet, stage right. I can cook an omelet, a skill that allows me to live off the land. The word “cook”, either noun or verb, was absent from our marriage vows.
I whip out a small skillet, stir up three eggs, with a skosh of half and half to lighten things. I apply a tablespoon of butter to the skillet. I set aside some grated cheddar and maybe some scallions. I turn up the heat. With a spatula, I move the eggs about to cook partly, then spread the cheese and scallions on one side. At the right moment, I flip the eggs over and create a half-moon of golden-brown goodness. It’s all in the wrist.
In my youth, Sergeant Mom made her squad eat breakfast every day. Not just cereal. Eggs were a staple. My older sisters gagged and protested. The Sergeant would have none of it. She would leave the room grumbling, “Those eggs better be gone when I get back.” They were gone on her return – furtively pushed into a ledge under the table.
For us, the kitchen table was where homework and term papers were done, mail sorted, and where we played Hearts and Oh Hell into the night with friends. It was also an emergency room. Our granddaughters and their mom and dad were visiting when Diana dropped a wine glass. It shattered and sliced her foot. An ophthalmologist, a family friend, brought over his doctor bag to stitch her up. Along with him came his brood. He sat down at the kitchen table, blew the dust off his suture kit, propped her foot on his lap and went to work. “Hmm, haven’t done this in awhile.” Three children raced in and out of the kitchen giggling and shouting as the operation proceeded. One, possibly a doctor in the making, stood and watched closely, transfixed, as the needle rose up and down.
The breakfast table has always been a refuge. Neither myself nor My Life’s Editor believe in Halloween; we would prefer it slip into oblivion like Festivus or National Fried Chicken Day. Early on, when our little people were not much bigger than the Halloween bags they carried, we strolled with them to houses where neighbors slipped candy into their bags as well as a drink into our hands. Before long, Halloween in our neighborhood became a street party on steroids with gargantuan lawn balloons and animatronic skeletons. Kids arrived in busloads from bordering counties. Late in the evening, foraging teens showed up at the door demanding plunder, costumeless, save the occasional Goth. Eventually, we said no mas to Halloween. We turned off the lights and hid in the back of the house. We huddled at the kitchen table, safe from the madding crowd.
I think I’ll pour myself a cup of coffee, sit at Grif’s creation, lean back, and enjoy the day.
