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In the past, my columns have usually been observations of my family's behavior over the years. That's the gist of this one, too, but with an additional plea for help, this time … for Mrs. Franco. She needs a dinner date.
You see, because I work evenings, her and I only get to have dinner twice a week. But because we have four kids, she has always had someone to eat dinner with these past 20-plus years. However, kids grow older, kids move away and now she has dinner usually on a wooden TV tray with only three cats and two dogs circling the living room, waiting for her to drop a table scrap their way. I don't want her to become THAT! lady with the dogs and cats and a TV dinner, thought if any one can pull that look off, she can.
My one daughter has a good excuse, she is a travel X-ray technician at a hospital in Utah. But she could FaceTime her during dinner and the two could have their meal together. I know I am no computer wizard, but I think that is possible, maybe with the exception of the two-hour time difference between meals.
My other daughter comes home from work at different times, and my two sons, they are all over the map with their return times. Maybe they eat at 4 p.m., or maybe they eat at 7 p.m. or later. Again, I feel bad, and to me, they are oblivious to the fact that families should eat together. But they have friends, and there's a girlfriend, and it just makes me sad sometimes that she's alone after years of not being alone.
Now let me preface this with the fact that my wife does not want me to write this column, but in the past 20-plus years of writing a monthly column, and with numerous awards for writing this column won by me in storage … what do you think the chance was that I would let this one pass?
It's just that I grew up in a house where you always had six people at the dinner table, and usually many more, what with five houses on my block containing relatives who did not knock when they walked into each other's homes. You could walk into another home, sit down at a table, grab a meatball and pick up the conversation without missing a beat. Can anyone do that today where they live? If you can, God bless you because that's an awesome neighborhood.
My Uncle Don and Aunt Madeline were the smart ones, though, they moved several blocks down over Dutch Hill into a neighborhood where you had to knock upon entry. I so long for the days in my home when there were six people having seven different conversations at the dinner table. I miss the Sunday dinners during football season when the game could be clearly viewed while we were eating and a debate would break out over a play in the game. Yes … I used debate. My wife would tell you it was an argument, but I digress.
To clarify some things here, we are talking about the Franco family. My mom was a Risoldi, and though we loved that part of the family, too, I think if all the Risoldi's lived next door to me and all the Franco's, we could be talking about a sequel to the Kevin Costner movie "The Untouchables."
I always tell Ann Marie to call her mom, or a sister, or a few of her brothers, but she points out that they have busy lives and families. She gives me the story about enjoying the peace and quiet of dinner for one ... blah, blah, blah! Silence is overrated. She has three exercise buddies that she works out with in the morning. Maybe they could do a dinner night together. Ladies, if you're reading this, she loves steak, baked potatoes and Brussels sprouts.
There are all kinds of support groups for people who are alone. I want to start one for women whose husbands work at night and feel the need to look after their better halves by starting a dinner club. I cannot be in two places at the same time because if I could … well, let's just say that peace and quiet thing would go out the window. I guess you could say I will not go quietly when it comes to this subject.
Mirror Sports Staffer Scott Franco writes a monthly column for the Mirror, where he makes sure all of his co-workers are never lonely.