The Booth

Every childhood should have a booth...

The booth was already there, tucked away in the northeastern corner of the kitchen by the window, before I came along. It was an handmade and handsome affair, done up expertly by my father, who was a skilled woodworker and carpenter. He had built it a generation before, for my older brother L., who used to sit at it, reading his comic books and entertaining his friends, many a time with our pretty French cousin, D., a renown beauty.

Booths had long been part of the American culinary and dining milieu and a favorite of parents as an eating place for their kids, so they would not be disturbed and could watch over the children, while they dined at the kitchen table. Booths were all over the American landscape at the time. They were romantic, cozy, private, secluded...  you name it, fun places to have your meal, especially for children, and we took right to it.

For our generation, the booth was the desired spot for milk, cocoa, juice, sweets and treats. And mom sure knew how to serve up a multitude of her delicious sweets. There were chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, oatmeal and raisin, chocolate and vanilla puddings, banana bread, chocolate cakes and apple turnovers, and our all time favorite: whoopie pies. You have not experienced life, if you haven't eaten that chocolaty-marshmallowly goodness known as a Whoopie Pie!

There was the splendor and festivities of holidays dinners like Thanksgiving and Christmas spent at the booth. The turkey and glazed pineapple ham with all the fixings (which included everything from carrot and celery sticks to peas, corn, squash, bread, stuffing, mashed potatoes, olives - well, I never ate the olives), minced meat and apple pie, and all the soda we could drink. And Halloween saw us pouring out all the candy we scored on the booth's kid-sized table and gobbling most of it down, before being told by our parents to save some for tomorrow and future days.

Some of the most exciting times at the booth for us was when our other French cousin D. came around. She was a child model and another French beauty. D. had the best toys and games. We used to spend hours with her Etch-A-Sketch and be mystified by the hypnotic colors of her Lite Brite. And her Easy-Bake Oven, that sat on the big kitchen table, but we ate the treats she baked for us at the booth.

As for me, I remember sitting at the booth and opening my pack of hockey cards. Oh, I used to collect NHL cards, had them by the hundreds, Bobbie Orr... Phil Esposito... Ken Hodge... Guy Lafleur and many others, and chewing the stick of bubble gum which accompanied every pack, while I looked out the window off in to the driveway, West Street and the big world.

One day, the booth just disappeared, like many a loss in life, it is there for years and then you realize it is gone. You become habituated to it and it had weathered storms and tantrums and many a laughter of children passing by. I don't know if my parents threw it out or gave it to some other family in need of it for their young children, but we had grown up finally.  It was time to sit at the big table.


Image Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/488148047082207584/