To Make Much of Time

I grew up attending dinners that my parents hosted in their small Swiss Chalet many times a year.  When company visited, Mom set out the fancy plates in the dining room on the multi-leaf pine table that grew or shrunk with the size of the crowd. Her best napkins themed for the season waited with a fold under the knife and spoon. Stemware, mugs, and flower speckled bowls appeared from somewhere.  In the kitchen Dad toiled filling every surface with steaming entrees, pureed sides, and thick slabs of bread that once fully prepared turned the corner into the dining room where the guests waited. The table was full: of dishes, of food, of people. I remember very little space. Yet somehow all of it and us magically fit. 

Grandparents, neighbors, colleagues, old friends, new friends, cousins, uncles, aunts, current students, former students, community members recently met, exchange students, college roommates and others were welcomed. I remember the groups' collective smiles through a nostalgic sweet and savory haze of dinner's steam filling the room.  All ate well, conversed throughout the meal, well past dessert. Many a guest was loathe to leave my parents dining room table so they lingered in each other's company. Most lost track of time. Left hours after they intended.

Time.

This vein of mid 20th century hospitality runs to the heart of Ridges - Hike & Ski Tours.  I believe people so enjoyed their time with my parents that they never forgot them, that dining room, this property, the kindness served them at the hands of my parents.  In fact I know it.  People I had never met before have stopped me in mid-sentence when they connected me in their mind to my parents. Then they proceeded to tell me their recollection of one of those meals that I did not attend being off at college or out of the house in my adult life.  Their tale was strange and yet familiar as I have eaten many of those meals.