The Dinner Bell

 On farms they used to always have a bell that signals to all the hands and family that they should come in from the fields for dinner.  My Grandma in Oklahoma had a bell like this.  We also have a bell hanging on our porch. 

I was just out in the garden weeding and picking beans tonight while Master was making Mac and cheese for dinner when I heard the bell ring. I looked up and there was my oldest kid ringing the bell, and I was immediately back in time when my Grandma would ring the bell to get all of us kids to stop playing outside and come in for supper. Or dinner.  At that time and place dinner was a big meal at noon and supper was a sandwich at night.  Both could have cake.  My Grandma baked a lot, and so did my Grandpa, so the sandwiches would always be on bread that he had made. 

I was transported back to the moment my mom told me she was adopting the dinner bell idea for our house because it was always so hard to get people to the table in a timely manner.  We always wanted to finish our game first, or something.  Honestly, it's hard to imagine NOT wanting dinner now, but as a kid other things seemed more important.   We didn't have a big metal bell at home, but somewhere my mom or dad found a large gong, about 12-18 inches across, and a wooden spoon.  So every night at dinner the dinner gong would ring and we'd all coming running because it was too difficult to resist the call of the gong.  There was just some so outlandishly fun about it.  After a while it began to seem totally normal, but by then we'd been well trained to jump up and run to the table at the sound of the dinner gong.

Anyway, I don't think this story is going anywhere, but it was a pleasant stroll being taken back in time as I strolled up to the house with my beans for dinner time tonight.