We had an old black walnut round table with a couple of leaves inserted that stretched it out into an oval, back when I was growing up on the farm in Maine.

The kitchen itself was farm command central, with seven doors, each providing access to a different domain. There was the door to the living room, the door up the back-stairs, the door down to the cellar depths, the backyard door, the pantry door, the backroom door and the door out into the front barnyard. There were times when things got quite busy in the kitchen with all the possible comings and goings of people, pets and vermin.

The door frames were interesting as well. Either the center of the house was moving up or the walls were sinking down, or maybe both were happening silultaneously. There used to be an old coal stove on one side of the room that the dogs slept behind, and a dry sink with a hand pump at one end against the back wall. There was also a mural of "Sweet Betsy from Pike" on the back wall, including the shanghai rooster and the spotted hog. No wall was safe from Mother! She also had painted a pair of small oval murals on the wall above the kitchen table between the windows, one of Molly Malone wheeling her famous cart and another with a shapely mermaid a-sitting on a buoy.

When my brother and I were younger there was no electricity. There were oil lamps for lighting, a real icebox that my parents cut ice for, and a battery operated radio that we loved to listen to for country music and radio drama. My parents also had some good friends who would come over for singing folk songs, and who would also consume huge quantities of food, hard liquor and beer. Some of the more interesting songs we only learned late at night by listening carefully from the head of the stairs. The acoustics were quite good up the stair well!

The farm kitchen is still a comfortable place where Mother in her late 80's is still holding court. The doorframes look even more weird but she's had the ceiling recently re-painted and is planning to resurface the floor. I stop by there once or twice a week to do some chores and swap gossip about various projects. She still enjoys the old songs.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble