Charmion, I KNOW what he means!!! when I had the opportunity to get a Dining Table made to my specs. It is 6'6"long and 3'6"wide sothat there is room down the middle between place settings for dishes of food!!!
But to pick up Jerrys Kitchen Tables theme, yeah, it was the centre of our house when I was growing up, complete with the split in a board in the middle that my father had accidently made while he was making a fishing rod on it. When we moved to England in the late 50s-early 60S it got left behind as we could only take what we could carry. So, along with my collection of "carefully saved for" books hoarded and added to from 2nd hand sources, my first microscope and other personal effects it was left behind. It was many years before I realised that a focus was missing from things. But gradually other Kitchen tables in other peoples houses made new memories , some of the best I have,of music and talk and singing. Now my mother and sister ( who were the indisputable Queens of their Kitchen tables) have passed on and I am reminded again that Kitchen tables are so important because so often they are close to the centre of caring and love in a house.