The Lost and Found Napkin Ring

[image error] My mom was what you would call “big on manners.” She had very definite ideas of what could be on the dinner table like bowls and pitchers and what wasn’t allowed like pans and cartons.

From time to time she would fine us for “bad manners” like a dime for an infraction. Sometimes it was more fun to choose crude and sacrifice a dime for the cause. Or my brothers thought so!

I have a memory of going to something like charm school on a small-scale to improve my skills. No boys allowed in the class. She tried hard.

Cloth napkins were held in high value at our house and one day a package showed up in the mail with a silver-ish napkin ring for each of us with our name on it. My mom was so thrilled with these like she had just won the sweepstakes.

At the end of every meal we would insert our used napkin in the ring for the next round at the table. Cut down on laundry she thought, another high value.

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Then the napkin rings stopped showing up because we stopped showing up. Off to college, jobs, new locations with new families. I forgot all about them.

Funny, but when I started setting my own tables though, napkin rings often made an appearance. I picked them up at my usual spots like garage sales and resale shops. I guess folks were downsizing and cast them off. I have quite a collection