Paul Turner: The children’s table has gone from fun place to phone time

I have it on good authority that there has been a societal shift radically altering a time-honored American institution.

Yes, the children’s table has lowered its voice.

Long a staple of gatherings of extended families, the children’s table has undergone a generational role-reversal. The tables have turned, so to speak.

Whereas it once was the reliable home of festive bedlam, this mealtime reservation for youth has become an island of semi-silence as kids devote most of their attention to their phones.

Meanwhile older family members are said to be picking up the slack in the hootin’ and hollerin’ department.

Feel free to dispute these findings. But if you have been to a family reunion this summer, you might be inclined to confirm this report.

Once home to spirited highjinks of all sorts, the children’s table has become a center of sober solemnity. Well, sort of.

Have you ever been the designated adult seated at the children’s table at, say, Thanksgiving? Something about that setting seemed to bring out the feral nature of some kids. Maybe it had something to do with feeding time.

Now, it can be argued, that has changed.

Oh sure, really small kids, those without phones, remain perfectly capable of creating havoc with grubby little fistfuls of potato salad headed for a cousin’s hair and random bursts of high-pitched squealing. But older denizens of the children’s table tend to be intent on scrolling and texting.

Of course, 13-year-olds have no monopoly on the hunched posture of someone staring at his or her device. More than a few adults have been known to be transfixed by their Twitter stream or whatever.

At some family gatherings, there are rules requiring that everyone put away their phones during meals. But in settings where phone use has a tacit green light, the children’s table just isn’t the same riot of uproarious energy anymore. Or so I am told.

You can decide for yourself whether that’s good or bad.

Just wondering

Back when you were school age, did you ever undergo a dramatic physical transformation over the course of a single summer?

Bird is the word

There are a lot of good things to be said for Spokane and its inhabitants.

There are many great kids here. I’m told exciting things are happening to the restaurant scene. And occasionally someone driving through your neighborhood exceeds the posted speed limit by only 10 mph or so.

But let’s face it. There’s one area where Spokane definitely needs some work.

A lot of people here don’t know the difference between crows and ravens.

This corvid confusion has been around for as long as I can remember. And in my experience, people here do not appreciate being corrected about this. Even though the differences are easy to look up.

The vast majority of the time the mistake arises when people insist that Spokane crows are actually ravens. I think I know why they do this.

Ravens seem more dramatic. The name, made famous in a poem, seems more elegant to say. And once you’ve seen a nature special in which ravens are hopping around near a grizzly bear and its kill, you have to admit those birds have spunk.

And everybody except TV’s Lou Grant admires spunk.

But the crows, the black birds these people here actually are seeing 99 out of 100 times, are left to ask a question.

What are we – chopped liver?

No, not at all. Crows are big. Crows are loud. Crows are smart.

Yet they are underappreciated. How to fix this?

I have an idea. The next time Spokane has a new sports team in need of a mascot, why not pick “Crows”?

Are black uniforms still in vogue?

Failing that, I supposed someone could write some Poe-esque verse with lines like “quoth the crow.”

Let’s move on.

Keep your sunny side up

Everything is relative, including the hot weather.

So if someone starts to complain about the heat, you can put it in perspective. Here are three options.

1) Well, there’s little chance you will encounter black ice out on the road.

2) Yes, but it’s a good day to use the words “sultry” and “estival.”

3) OK, but what song features the lyric “Hotter than a match head”?

Contact the writer:

(509) 459-5470

pault@spokesman.com