Think about it for a while. The fork. Where would our tables manners (if anyone still practices them) be without it. Try eating spaghetti without it. Battle your vegies with a spoon? Savor your T-bone? Thank a fork.
According to the world’s foremost electronic dissemination of questionable knowledge and correct answers, the Eastern Roman Empire bestowed us with the fork sometime during the fourth century.
There are different types of forks for different types of jobs, and I will take an uneducated guess that the table fork descended from a weapon. If it’ll stick an opponent, it’ll stick a steak! There are forks for pitching hay and cleaning out the stall. There are forks for tuning your favorite out-of-tune piano.
I retired from SinterFire Inc. in December of 2020 and there we would sometimes struggle with dirty and sticking machine tooling after a long run. We used, what we affectionately called, a “pickle fork” to aid in the removal of said tooling. It was a long handled, two-pronged gizmo with a taper on one side of the prongs for prying.
(SinterFire is the world leader in the manufacturing of leadfree frangible ammunition and bullets. www.sinterfire.com)
The types of forks and their use would fill a book and I don’t have the time nor ambition or incentive for such a task.
The fork I refer to is a common table fork that came into our home by unknown means and was discovered by accident some time ago while cleaning up the evening meal.
I had found the wayward utensil some time ago while unloading the dishwasher. I commented to my wife that said fork looked very familiar and I thought it to be out of the set I had grown up with. Judy said that couldn’t possibly be since my dad’s passing was in 1993 and thereafter mom had moved into an assisted living community and passed away in 2003. Judy and I are unsure as to the fate of mom’s silverware so the only possibility that could be was that it belonged to a neighbor. But verification by my sister proved that the phantom fork was indeed a family heirloom.
There is nothing outstanding about it. The design is simple enough. Two spiral pillars on top of four serrations pressed into the handle. There are no manufactures mark on it anywhere and its brilliance is now dulled from the many decades of use and washings.
But boy if that fork could talk. How many family meals did it witness? Whose hunger did it quell? How many discussions did it overhear? The turbulence and the tenderness. The celebrations and the solemn. Reunions and break-ups. Joyful or tragic, this fork was there. From the time I can remember and into my teens. And finally, to the day I left home.
There is significance to that insignificant everyday tool we take for granted. We throw it in the dishwasher when we’re done eating and after it dries it goes into the drawer until it’s use is needed again. Over and over again, day after day, meal after meal, all these years gone by.
I have claimed rights and property over this fork. It has been with me all of my life.
Long Lonesome Highway 