A Road Less Travelled

Last night we gathered at the Lansberry household and sat down to eat together. I have recently been becoming aware of how very strange it is to most people nowadays to sit down together for no other reason than that you want to be together and you want to eat together. Hospitality is rapidly becoming a lost art and while we are in no way guests at the Lansberry house when we come over we and they are practicing what we believe about community and friends. I figure if I can actually point to an instance wherein we practice what we keep blathering about that’s no bad thing.

  While the children were still sitting at the table we talked about various summer reading programs available in Peoria. Theresa was going down the list of all the programs she knew about and listing the good and bad aspects of each one. After the children left the table James brought up a topic and from the time he brought it up and the time we actually addressed it we talked about gaming conventions, dog shows, a really funny sounding breed of dog I had never heard of before, birds, and speeding. Noah had steadfastly refused to take a nap yesterday afternoon so he started melting down a little earlier than usual. Seth hustled the kids into the van and loaded all of our paraphernalia in before he came back and dragged Crystal and I away from an interesting conversation. We left and as usual I felt it had been a very satisfying evening spent with friends.