THE LATE NIGHT RIDE OF THE PICNIC TABLE
Everything I see, hear, touch, read reminds me of an incident, lover, friend, relative, no longer in my life. Thus is everything an arrow tinged with sadness spent to my interior.
There was a picnic table at the beginning of my walk from a motel in Blanco, TX. to the deli that always brought up a particular memory. I have seen picnic tables before. I am now 2500 miles and 29 years from the one I saw at the side of a railroad track in a small, woodsy town where my lover and I had just rented a house nearby. We decided our backyard, but briefly subjected to our ministrations but looking all the better for them, would look even better with a picnic table! As feminist lesbians we were trying to carve out our niche within society. Newly graduated from college, and embarking on new career paths in a new location, the world could be our oyster! And did it not just hand us a picnic table!?
We set out in the dark of an evening, slightly exhilarated by our rambunctiousness, slightly guilty about what seemed like stealing even though we reckoned the table had to be abandoned. Why else sitting by the side of little used tracks?
The table was very . . .very . . . VERY . . . heavy. Its heaviness increased on the trip back to our little house with each step. But we lived only a block away and finally made it. Back we went for the benches that almost seemed not worth the effort at that point, but would complete our task. They were heavy too, though not nearly as much as the table, and we were sweating heavily in the cool evening.
Set in place, the next day revealed the table to be pure redwood! Of course it would have to be for an outdoor table; this explained its weight, and sturdiness. What a lovely addition to our new place!
Oddly, come the weekend, we were working in the yard and, glancing down the fences and yards that separated our place from the tracks, we saw a group of men gathered where the table had been, standing around scratching their heads. We glanced only briefly, guiltily at each other then dismissed the sight unspoken as having no relevance to us.
I can hardly see a picnic table to this day without thinking of that instance. Because: I saw another picnic table, by the side of a railroad track, solidly holding up the lunches and bodies of a nearby work crew. It’s some kind of tradition I guess, a lunch spot for the crews that work the tracks. I hate to figure that she and I contributed to the chains I see leading to concrete set to the side of the ground by these units and wrapped around and through the solid redwood but of course we did.
I’m really sorry, guys. Honest. We thought it just fell there for us to take advantage of.
As I finish writing this I pick up “In the Face of Death” and read, “Add to this the sense of being at the center of action, especially obvious in the case of Trotsky when, from his legendary railroad car, he built and commanded the Red Army, leading it to its final victory.” Well, of course we weren’t in Russia. But Peter Noll continues: “The sense of participating actively in history, the primitive joy of combat and victory leave no room for thoughts straying into the more distant future. For this more than any other reason, all revolutions tend to reach goals that are quite different from their original vision.”
I would have to agree. We thought ourselves revolutionary, two women revolting against our assigned gender roles. The revolution did stray. In this instance into common thievery.
There was a picnic table at the beginning of my walk from a motel in Blanco, TX. to the deli that always brought up a particular memory. I have seen picnic tables before. I am now 2500 miles and 29 years from the one I saw at the side of a railroad track in a small, woodsy town where my lover and I had just rented a house nearby. We decided our backyard, but briefly subjected to our ministrations but looking all the better for them, would look even better with a picnic table! As feminist lesbians we were trying to carve out our niche within society. Newly graduated from college, and embarking on new career paths in a new location, the world could be our oyster! And did it not just hand us a picnic table!?
We set out in the dark of an evening, slightly exhilarated by our rambunctiousness, slightly guilty about what seemed like stealing even though we reckoned the table had to be abandoned. Why else sitting by the side of little used tracks?
The table was very . . .very . . . VERY . . . heavy. Its heaviness increased on the trip back to our little house with each step. But we lived only a block away and finally made it. Back we went for the benches that almost seemed not worth the effort at that point, but would complete our task. They were heavy too, though not nearly as much as the table, and we were sweating heavily in the cool evening.
Set in place, the next day revealed the table to be pure redwood! Of course it would have to be for an outdoor table; this explained its weight, and sturdiness. What a lovely addition to our new place!
Oddly, come the weekend, we were working in the yard and, glancing down the fences and yards that separated our place from the tracks, we saw a group of men gathered where the table had been, standing around scratching their heads. We glanced only briefly, guiltily at each other then dismissed the sight unspoken as having no relevance to us.
I can hardly see a picnic table to this day without thinking of that instance. Because: I saw another picnic table, by the side of a railroad track, solidly holding up the lunches and bodies of a nearby work crew. It’s some kind of tradition I guess, a lunch spot for the crews that work the tracks. I hate to figure that she and I contributed to the chains I see leading to concrete set to the side of the ground by these units and wrapped around and through the solid redwood but of course we did.
I’m really sorry, guys. Honest. We thought it just fell there for us to take advantage of.
As I finish writing this I pick up “In the Face of Death” and read, “Add to this the sense of being at the center of action, especially obvious in the case of Trotsky when, from his legendary railroad car, he built and commanded the Red Army, leading it to its final victory.” Well, of course we weren’t in Russia. But Peter Noll continues: “The sense of participating actively in history, the primitive joy of combat and victory leave no room for thoughts straying into the more distant future. For this more than any other reason, all revolutions tend to reach goals that are quite different from their original vision.”
I would have to agree. We thought ourselves revolutionary, two women revolting against our assigned gender roles. The revolution did stray. In this instance into common thievery.
posted by CHRIS at 9:02 AM
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