Just a few days ago was 4th of July. As with any other 4th, I bought a couple of slabs of ribs, made sure I had a goodly supply of hardwood for smoking, and cleaned the smoker inside and out. Let the kids know the plans so they could drop in as their schedules allowed. Ribs, deviled eggs, cabbage, cornbread. Just the usual. Nothing fancy.
But-and this is what makes it into a holiday...into a celebration....
Table service was on china.
My grandmother's china, to be exact.
The pattern is Royal Swirl. Mid-1960's. Fine China from Japan, according to the maker's mark on the back. Each plate has a pink rose in the center, with a scroll pattern on the rim of more flowers and grey curlicues, with a silverish rim. Maybe platinum?
The whole set, mind you. Plates, salad plates, cups and saucers. Gravy boats and underliners. Three separate sizes of small plates larger than a saucer and smaller than a salad plate. Soup tureens. Lids. Serving platters. Salt and pepper shakers. Everything.
This china was intertwined with holidays and vacations in my childhood. Thanksgiving, Christmas, anytime we visited my grandmother, we ate off this china.
She must have had casual dinner plates, too, but I can't for the life of me remember using them. I do remember the huge oval glass tumblers, all embossed with a stylized Gothic "H" For Harrington, which held sweet tea. A sweet tea that was almost black, into which ice cubes would disappear, which was sweet enough to stand a spoon on end.
When Grandmother moved into an assisted living facility, she sold the house. Furniture and furnishings went to whoever in the family wanted them. I remember no arguments between us. Kelly got the silver. Mom got her bedroom suit. Adam got the old console TV--which may still work. I got the china, the sideboard, the china cabinet.
All these years later, I honor the memory of grandmother and her gatherings by using her china for important meals. It is remarkably light, and remarkably durable. No chips, no cracks, no fading. Maybe there is a metaphor there about life and family and memory and celebration.
Maybe there is a reminder that family, like well-made china, is forged to last for generations.
Or maybe it is just about plates. I don't know.
Anyway, I have some great memories of using those plates. Our chaotic Christmas Eve dinners in Pelham, crowded into the kitchen and dining room around Grandmother's dining room table, eating from her heritage china.
We've always washed those dishes by hand. Never trusted them to a dishwasher. The metallic trim would probably be discolored or damaged. So we always washed by hand. Following the age-old traditions, everyone would pitch in after dinner, fill the sink basin with soapy water as hot as could be tolerated, and wash and dry together.
David would usually take over the soaping and scrubbing, with a kid on rinse and a couple or three to dry. I remember him hunched over the sink, toothpick working from side-to-side in his mouth. Hands plunged into soapy steam up to those bony elbows of his. Haranguing the rest of his team to work harder and keep up with him.
Setting the pace.
David really really set the pace. With everything. Since we lost him just a couple of months ago, I have reflected on just how central he was to all of us.
Although it has been almost 15 years since the most recent of those huge Christmas dinners with everyone around the table, every time I pull Grandmother's china out of the cabinet, the one with the door that sticks on the top right corner, I think of all we did and said together. Sitting at the table over interminable cups of coffee and cake after dinner.
David on dish duty, directing his crew like George Patton barking out orders to the 3rd Army as they drove into Germany in the last months of WWII.
Culture changes, tastes change. Fine china, the type that costs hundreds of dollars and lasts a lifetime or more, has fallen out of favor. Estate sales and antique shops can't find buyers for their vintage sets, and young couples no longer register a china or silver pattern for wedding gifts. Which is a shame, I suppose.
Treated with care, a good set of china will last for generations.
Just like the memories created whenever families gather to sit down together.
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