When the Kitchen Table Was the Internet
Some of us of the Baby Boomer generation grew up when the kitchen table was the internet, and everyone had an opinion. (Lars visited with his brother yesterday at a local noodle restaurant in Mountain View, so these recollections are at least a bit fresh.)
A few things about the Toomre family:
Each of the exactly twenty (20) American Toomres shares a unique first name — generally short and engineered to resist easy Americanized nicknames. Good luck trying to come up with one for Alar, Joyce, Lars, Erik, Anya, Derek, Krista, Kyra, Reese, Teagan, or Sage. All share the same unusual last name Toomre (sometimes shortened by teasing teenagers to "Tumor") and the same unofficial middle name: "Stubborn." Hence, Lars sometimes became "Large Stubborn Tumor" when being mocked by cruel teenagers. That is the kind of childhood roast that builds character or requires therapy — sometimes both.
Advice was free, loud, and sometimes useful. The caveat was that one was required to provide reasoned justifications for one's arguments, and the language had damn well better be correct. A copy of the Oxford English Dictionary sat in the dining room over Lars' father's shoulder. Those volumes came down fast to verify the veracity of some word or phrase — no hiding behind anonymity or emojis, especially with two academics at the table: a Professor of Applied Mathematics from MIT ("MIT"), and a Fellow of Harvard University's Russian Research Center who specialized as a Slavicist and culinary historian. One did not often "win" by offering less than reasonable justifications.
One learned fast, laughed harder, and moved on. The criticism was extremely sharp, with no leeway for hurt feelings. Egos got dinged, but one learned to think on one's feet, laugh at oneself, and keep swinging.
Life was not always quiet — but it was deeply connected. No doom-scrolling required.
And somehow, that made all the noise worth it — especially when sharing the collective groan over yet another New England Patriots loss or Boston Red Sox disappointment. Those moments around the table, even the brutal ones, forged bonds that no amount of curated online content can replicate.
Sometimes the best "internet" was a crowded kitchen table, a stack of dictionaries, and twenty stubborn souls who refused to let bad grammar — or bad teams — slide. And the images printed in the newspaper could be most "stimulating" to a young teenager. winks