Nana's Table

 

I confess to a general dislike of family holidays but I do sometimes think back and miss my grandmother’s Thanksgiving table.

It meant church clothes, of course, and we each had to pass an inspection of our fingernails and the backs of our ears and once we were ready, we were seated and warned not to move lest we wrinkle or spoil the final effect. And then we were carefully led to the old Mercury station wagon, settled in and driven to Nana’s. We sat stiffly for the short trip and there was no talking. She lived in the next town over and there was barely time for the heater to kick in on some of those frigid November days, especially if there was snow, but we sat more or less patiently. We might have been shivering with cold but we knew better than to complain.

Nana’s house was always toasty warm during the winter and kitchen smelled wonderfully of turkey and fresh rolls and cinnamon dusted apple pie. The table was set for our family of five, Aunt Helen and Uncle Eddie, and my grandmother. Nana always put out her best china and linen napkins for Thanksgiving and each place featured a crystal glass for ice water and a small sherry glass for apple or tomato juice. Dinner was turkey and gravy, stuffing, white and sweet mashed potatoes, onions in cream sauce, those green squash, halved with their centers cut out and refilled with butter and maple syrup, and Parker House dinner rolls. A huge crystal tray set in front of Nana’s place, neatly arranged with celery, green and black olives, cubes of Vermont made cheddar cheese and cocktail onions. There were two silver gravy boats, one for each end of the table, two butter dishes, and a centerpiece of fresh flowers surrounded by white, tapered candles in gleaming silver holders that gave off just the slightest hint of vanilla. If ever I was to choose one image that would be my ideal of a family, it would be that table and it’s hand crocheted tablecloth. It wasn’t, of course, and it wouldn’t last but for a few precious moments before my mother or Aunt Helen would begin sniping or the boys would start fighting, it felt like a Norman Rockwell magazine cover.

The tradition continued until Nana was in her late 70’s and decided she didn’t want to put in the time and trouble anymore. Nobody else was willing to either so we began to go to restaurants – my favorite was The Red Coach Inn – but it was in Wayland and that meant a considerable drive (a stuffy half hour) so we usually ended up closer to home at places with plain vanilla fare and very little ambiance. We settled for whatever holiday menu they offered and made the best of it. Only my mother seemed to enjoy these dinners but I often suspected it was because she didn’t have to clean up the kitchen and wash dishes afterwards. Sentiment wasn’t part of her nature but for that one day every year, it was part of mine, at least for a little while.

An Unexpected Kindness

 

My first brush with gratitude came in elementary school when my 4^th grade teacher, Mrs. Scanlan,

suggested that if I was a mind to, I could stay after school and read in the library, putting off going

home for an hour or two. It was an unexpected kindness and while I had no idea how she knew how

reluctant I was to go home and I wasn’t brave enough to ask, I did take her suggestion. She was a

strict disciplinarian, taken to rapping the knuckles with a ruler of anyone who didn’t pay attention in

penmanship, and like all 4^th graders, she intimidated me.

The school library was no more than an unused classroom with book shelf covered walls, a single

scarred table and four slightly unsteady wooden chairs but to me it was a gold mine of escape and

adventure, a quiet place to do my homework, and a safe haven. Mrs. Scanlan must’ve mentioned it to

my 5^th grade teacher, Mrs. Rankin, because the privilege was extended the next year but it was my 6^th

grade teacher, Mrs. Arnold, who brought it all to life. Mrs. Scanlan and Mrs. Rankin were silver haired

and gruff, sisters who had been teaching since – as my grandmother used to say, “Before the flood”, a

mysterious phrase if ever there was one – both wore low heeled, sensible shoes and support hose, gold

rimmed glasses, and house dresses. In winter, they each added a neutral colored sweater held in place

by shiny sweater clips. For the time, they were both model teachers, prizing orderly classrooms and

inviolate seating charts, no crumbs with our graham crackers and milk, and homework turned in on

time and done neatly. You sat up straight in their classrooms, paid attention, didn’t whisper or pass

notes or squirm in your seat. There was no mercy for anyone defiant enough to throw a spitball, when

Steven O’Leary, the class bully tried, he found himself swiftly and unceremoniously drug by the scruff

of the neck to the principal’s office. This was an early lesson about consequences and we took it to

heart.

“Young ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Rankin announced the following morning, “Mr. O’Leary will be

spending the day at home today. It will give him and all of you the opportunity to review and reflect

on the behavior I expect from my class.”

We didn’t need to be told twice. The reckless had been scared clean out of us and we were grateful.

From the desk next to me, my friend Paulina flashed me a wicked grin. She was a chubby little thing

with olive skin, a frequent target of Steven’s and when I winked back to assure her I understood,

Mrs. Rankin abruptly cleared her throat and gave her desk a sharp rap with her ruler. It might have

been no more than my overactive imagination but I could’ve sworn she was trying not to smile.

And then, almost like magic, on one fine September morning, we became sixth graders and everything

changed. Neither Paulina nor I had ever imagined that Mrs. Buchanan – a trifle younger, stouter and

slightly more liberal then Mrs. Scanlan or Rankin – would ever really retire or that the new sixth grade

teacher was about to guide us through a life altering experience. Mrs. Arnold was shockingly young,

barely in her 30’s and not only pretty but fashionably dressed in sweaters and skirts and to the absolute

horror of more than one conservative parent, sometimes tailored trousers that flared when she walked.

Her handbag usually matched her high heel shoes and her makeup was delicate and lightly applied to

show off her nearly perfect skin. Her nails were kept manicured with clear polish and she favored a

single strand of rose tinted pearls and matching earrings, pierced, not the old school clip ons.

“Wicked!” Paulina whispered to me that first morning as we chose our random seats with our new

teacher looking on and smiling.

“Good morning,” she told us in a voice soft and just slightly southern, “I’m Mrs. Arnold. Welcome to

the sixth grade! Would each of you tell me your names, please?”

We watched in surprise and bewilderment as she took out a Polaroid camera and snapped our pictures

as we gave our names. She laid out each photo to dry then neatly printed our names on them and put

them in a plastic bag.

“I’ll know your names by tomorrow,” she announced cheerfully, “but for now you’ll need to bear with

me. Now…….,” and this with a warm and genuine smile, “What would you like to start with?”

Start with? No assigned seating? Pictures? All eighteen of us were slack jawed with shock until

finally a voice from the back spoke up.

“You mean we get to choose?”

“Well,” our new teacher glanced down at her day planner, “Within reason, of course. We have English,

Mathematics, Geography, History and Music Appreciation. We have to do them all but where we start

is up to you. Who has a preference?”

Preference? Even sixth graders knew that the idea of having an actual conversation with a teacher was

no less than preposterous. Why, the very idea of this type of classroom freedom was practically

Communism and we’d all done enough Duck & Cover drills to be fully suspicious of this approach.

Though our new teacher didn’t look like a spy, you never could tell. We were children who drank our

milk every day with Ike and recited the Pledge of Allegiance before every class – and come to think of

it, we hadn’t done that yet either, what was the world coming to? Oh, it was all too new and confusing.

We began to suspect that our new teacher was as my mother liked to say, some sort of outside agitator,

here to wreak havoc upon our beloved country.

“Wait until my parents hear about this,” Paulina whispered to me, “They’ll blow a gasket!”

“Mine’ll blow two!” I whispered back.

But Mrs. Arnold remained serene and when the same voice from the back called out, “Music

Appreciation!” she nodded and smiled.

“Who likes rock and roll?” she asked, reaching for a tape recorder and I thought we might all faint.

The world, however, did not go gray or come crashing down on us that particular September morning.

Mrs. Arnold taught with patience and genuine enthusiasm. She had a gift for involving and engaging

her students, a flair for creative and more modern teaching methods, a respect for her profession and

her charges that we’d never seen before. She fed our curiosity, inspired us with an eagerness to

learn, taught us an authentic and long term love of reading, instilled in each one of us a sense of pride

and self confidence. She knew all our names by her second day and inside of a month had found out

all kinds of things we didn’t talk about – she knew that my mother was an alcoholic, that Paulina’s

daddy was a day laborer and spoke little or no English, that Steven O’Leary had spent the entire

summer in juvenile detention and been forced to change schools, that Everett Smith was being raised

by his grandmother who cleaned offices at night to get by, and a host of other well kept, sixth grade

secrets. She found out and then used what she learned to draw us out ever so gently and slowly. She

was, so those in her very first class thought, a wonderful blend of compassion and innovation and we

loved her.

It was Mrs. Arnold who asked me to stay after one cool autumn day.

“American Bandstand can survive one day without you,” she said with a knowing smile. When

school let out, she and I walked the few blocks to Massachusetts Avenue and another two blocks north

past the Rexall Drug and the Woolworth’s Five & Dime and the tiny Italian sub shop, to the East

Arlington Branch Library.

“We’re getting you a library card,” she told me, “They’re open until 6 during the week and all day on

Saturdays and it’s up to you but I promise it’s a safe place and you’ll learn a lot more here than with

Dick Clark.”

It was another unexpected kindness, one what you might expect from a very good friend or a devoted

grandmother but certainly nothing that happened in my enabling, chaotic and sometimes wildly

ambivalent home. I hated to cry, especially in public, but there was no help for it and right there in

the small branch library, in front of God and everyone, as my Nana liked to say, I hugged my now

beloved teacher and let the tears flow. She hugged me right back, and after a moment or so, produced

a lavender scented handkerchief from her shoulder bag and gently wiped my eyes then tucked my new

library card into my pocket.

“Take good care of it,” she told me softly, “It’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

And it did.

Mrs. Arnold only taught that one year at our elementary school and moved on to where we never knew

but in that one year, she changed lives and opened our eyes. I never got to tell her what sixth grade

came to mean to me but I’ve always hoped she had some idea. To this remarkable teacher and all the

others that followed from junior high to high school to college, thank you. It would never have

happened without you.