Yesterday
Dennis and I attended a chili supper to benefit the Senior Center in Lawrence.
Dennis is a member of the Douglas County Senior Services board so we had to not
just buy tickets, but also show up. The people were lovely. They were of all
ages but mostly older.
The food
was served in plastic bowls and plastic-coated paper plates. The drink glasses
were clear plastic and styrofoam. Although a large, open kitchen adjoined the auditorium, not
a single real dish or glass was in sight.
Given my
recent obsession with plastic it seemed quite right that Dennis found our
places to sit at a table facing one of the two 20-gallon trash cans in the
large room. For the second day in a row I was appalled by our casual disposal
of huge bags of detritus from our social events. I snapped a few photos.
In the
good old days we would have carried our used bowls, plates, spoons, forks, and
glasses to the kitchen pass-through. In the kitchen busy women and a stray man or two would have been doing the kitchen clean-up. A couple of people would have shuttled the dishes on to the people washing and drying the dishes. A couple more people would be putting everything back in its place, ready to be used
again. The kitchen was the scene of camaraderie, teasing, storytelling, and
laughter.
How could
we have let that go? How could we be so wasteful of not only resources but also
opportunity to socialize over a common task?
Copyright
2013 by Shirley Domer
2 comments:
I felt the same about my church kitchen, which was fully stocked with glassware and dishes, but were never used! I think this may have started when it became mandatory for public institutions to clean their dishes in a sanitary way. These requirements for disinfection of dishes has made using real dishes just too complicated!
That could be changed.
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