Dinner Invites
The Source
It’s a delightfully time-consuming game to play with your family or friends on those long summer road trips. The proposition is simple: Given a nice restaurant, a table for four, and a bit of magic, what three people …living or deceased . . . would you invite to join you for dinner? The world of personalities, dead or alive, is wide open to you. If you have your kids on board you could even extend the rules to include the Sponge-Bob-ian world of cartoons. I’ve played the game many times over the years with my students both in class and on overseas flights, and the answers are always interesting. Jesus Christ always figures high in the vote count. Although I’d not turn down an invitation to sup with the savior, I wonder if he might not put a damper on the conversation. Talk about an intimidating guest. Our presidents have often come up as potential invitees with Lincoln, Washington and Kennedy the leading vote getters. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I’ve always been afraid that Washington would be a bit of a disappointment and when the choices have centered on the head of state I’ve opted for Jefferson. I can remember President Kennedy’s opening remarks to a dinner for award winners at the White House one night: “This is the greatest accumulation of great minds in this place since the days when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” And of course when you’re playing the game with teenagers, sports heroes often pop up at the dinner table. Michael Jackson, Albert Pujols and the like. I’m not sure that the ability to bounce or trounce a rubber ball would necessarily make them good conversationalists, but it depends on your age and interests. So…when the game begins I of course chime in with my picks. When you do this exercise with teens they are often clueless about your choices. Names like Mother Teresa leave them puzzled so I try to opt for something more in touch with their experience. Besides, how much would Mother Teresa actually eat? And how could I keep from feeling guilty when I order prime rib? I’ve often wished I could spend an evening with Shakespeare if for no other reason to ask him how in the heck he was so prodigious in his output. Of course asking such a question might lead us to the answer that he wasn’t the actual author of that mound of manuscripts and I’d have one of my heroes blown out of the water between the soup and salad course. Davy Crocket and Daniel Boone have always fascinated me but I’m sure they would insist on killing their supper before we ate and we’d waste half the evening wandering hungry in the woods. Thinking biblically, Paul would be my choice, but again I don’t know that his zeal for the gospel would automatically translate into good dinner conversation. Let’s be honest…he was an angry man. The apostle Peter was more my type of guy, prone to make mistakes and admit them readily. Okay…enough fluffing around. I’ll make my final picks: Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Barack Obama. (Not President Obama with the load of crises that have been heaped upon him, but the young energetic senate candidate who strode so confidently into the JHS cafeteria a few years ago.) Why the three Midwesterners? Well, with this load of brain power at the table I don’t intend to do much talking. Who wants to listen to me when I’ve got them? Both Lincoln and Twain were intensely interested in other people and both had their routes in this rural area. Nothing would please me more than to listen to them chat with each other, and then turn to Obama with a raised eyebrow that asks, “Now, what are you going to do about it?” Wouldn’t that be fascinating? And I do love good stories. What two better teller of tales than Lincoln and Twain? Nothing wears me out more than trying to carry the load of an evening’s conversation and with these three I’d have little to do but sit back, chew, and perhaps take a few notes. I have a notion that Obama would also feel himself relegated to a position of listener instead of talker and that would be just fine with him. I’m sure that Barack has had his fill of spending time with people whose purpose is to push their own agendas. Twain and Lincoln both had a dream for America and I can think of no better therapy for our current president than to simply spend an evening listening to those dreams related by men whose love for country was both deep and articulate. Six hours to Branson? Play a few games.