Memories of Melmac

I was raised in the heyday of Melmac, when just about every household in America had it in the kitchen. I ate from, washed, dried, and stacked Melmac plates every day of my life for two decades, because those plates were indestructible. They were white with a brown and yellow wheat pattern. I grew to hate those dishes.

Why do I bring up Melmac? Well, melamine, that hard plastic resin, is making a comeback. On Saturday, something possessed me to buy a stack of mixing bowls in rainbow hues.

I lost my grandmother’s glass mixing bowls in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Every breakable dish in the kitchen was hurled on the floor. All my vintage glassware and crockery was in a heap of chips eight inches deep. I went out and bought cheap replacements, including lightweight plastic mixing bowls.

So here it is, 15 years later, and I saw this stack of mixing bowls on a shelf at the store. They are sturdy and colorful. I thought: I’m tired of cheap plastic.

They are made of melamine. So are a lot of dishes on display these days. The bowls have sat on the kitchen counter for two whole days. I am trying to work through a strange reluctance to actually own these mixing bowls, about which I have mixed feelings.

I think it has to do with my memories of Melmac. So I wrote a poem, hoping the Muse would tell me more.

Ode to Melmac Dishes


Oh, my Melmac dinnerware
you trudge through my childhood
like the heavy shoes I wore
(Dr. Scholls, what a bore
but serviceable and virtually
indestructible, designed
for fortitude, not for class)

I grew beside the sinks
of my childhood, washing
Melmac dishes with a rag
listening to my mother nag
about the quality of my work
while my brother kicked back
dishes that didn’t pass

I still can see the brown, the
white and gold wheat pattern
I still can hear the clatter
of Melmac plates and platters
on porcelain-painted iron
smell the soapsuds dripping down
feel the heft of plastic mass

Sometimes I dried instead
of washed, with a muslin towel
stitched by Grammy, killer of fowl
and grower of beans, she
whose presence seemed to rule
who spoke more kindly, far less
meanly, to a troubled lass

All my life the Melmac plates
rested in the cupboard
when they were not being used
To the plastic plates was fused
the growing pain of one
young girl who wished for love
and had her wishes dashed.

_________________________

It appears that I feel sorry for the lonely little girl who did her chores without much affection from the people around her.

Now, thank God, I've made peace with that troubled childhood. All's well that ends well. And by Sunday night, the new mixing bowls were in the cupboard, ready for a batch of cookies. Maybe this afternoon....