Living room use takes a few bounces

Years ago, many people had formal living rooms, and they were usually off limits for everyday use, except of course under special circumstances. The Christmas tree might be in there around the holidays, or when grandparents came to visit for Sunday afternoon dinner, then the living became the focal room in the house. Fortunately today, many families no longer have the formal living room and have the family room instead, which is far more utilitarian. However, for some of us, we still remember those days when the living room was the equivalent of the in home museum, but they could be transformed under the right conditions, and let me tell you how.

On Saturday evenings when I was younger, the living room became the epicenter for social activity. My father would put on a stack of 45's and my brothers and I would square off to a gentleman's game of "football". We made several modifications necessary to accommodate the indoor arena. Of course, the idea was to have fun, but we would consider it a success, if we didn't break anything. Once the game ended, we'd transform the room into a tent site replete with all the sleeping bags for a night's sleep under the "stars". What could be have been finer for the "Brothers Grime"?

Years later, I did the same thing with my daughter, only we set up the real tent inside. Naturally, the comforts of camping were better under these circumstances, including the use of our air mattresses. We'd also do our Arthur Murray routines to some background music of Nat King Cole. Additionally, instead of football, she and I decided to put up the ping pong table in the sacred space because the garage was simply too cold for us to play. Well, that sure turned up the temperature in a hurry on a cold winter's day, but as I recall, it has "served" up some fond memories.

Yes, the living room can be a room for living too, and in most homes, it has been a focal point for such wonderful memories. In the case of my brothers, my daughter and me, we enjoyed ourselves on countless occasions in the formal living room, even though the rules committee, shall we say, may have at times objected to our playing out of bounds!