And the Smell of Sunday Supper on the Table

I heard it before I saw it. It sounded just like a blow torch and not a sound you would expect to hear at the dinner table.


I was pretty young, probably under 7 and it was a Sunday afternoon. Mom was fixing dinner and I was in the kitchen with her. I don’t know where the rest of the kids were, but I’d make a bet they were off stirring up trouble somewhere.

Dad came rushing in from the garage where he had been working on a car. Having grown up in the 30’s with 10 other kids, he wasn’t exactly raised to be one of those “touchy-feely” fathers. Pretty much after the age of four, you didn’t get hugs and the first time I remember my father telling me he loved me (back) was on his death bed when I was 32 years old. He had finally started returning hugs only a month or two before that, knowing that the liver cancer was going to do him in.

So, Dad was the kind of man you would describe as being a strict parent. He believed in lectures and strong discipline when raising kids. That can be misinterpreted when you’re growing up and so it was with Dad. He wielded a strong hand or belt when he felt someone needed it. Or a lecture, if you were lucky. Mark was usually the “lucky participant” of the majority of the lessons, mainly because he was not smart enough to keep out of trouble or his mouth shut.

But I digress.

So Dad comes running into the kitchen and turns on the faucet and begins to vigorously wash his mouth with the well water. When he could finally speak he told Mom what had happened. Apparently while working on our car, he had siphoned some of the gas out into a BEER BOTTLE. Then forgetting that the beer bottle next to him wasn’t beer, he swigged a big gulp of the gasoline. I remember being a little afraid. I wasn’t quite old enough to know how serious it might be, but I could sense his bit of panic when washing his mouth out.

An hour or so later, the six of us sat down for Sunday dinner. Only mom and I knew what had happened with the gas/beer chugging. Dad didn’t like tomatoes or spaghetti, so I don’t really remember what he was eating, but the all of us grubby kids were slurping our spaghetti. Dad always finished eating before the rest of us and that day he did what he always did when he was done eating.

He grabbed a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it and then proceeded to blow out the match, breathing a three foot flame of gasoline fumes across the table.

Yep, THAT was the flame thrower sound. Mom and I knew why it happened, but the other kids thought it was that nightmare we all probably had after one of Dad’s discipline exercises. To them, I’m sure it seemed like he really WAS that fire breathing dragon. It was instant chaos. I think I started crying; Mark sat there in sheer terror, probably thinking Dad had figured out something Mark had done wrong (again) and he was about to catch holy hell. Helen stood up in panic, putting both hands down on the table, one in Michael’s plate of spaghetti, neatly cutting it all in bite-sized pieces for him. I don’t remember what Michael did, probably because Michael never seemed to do anything.

It was a Sunday dinner none of us will ever forget. You could say it has been “burned into our memory.”