As it happens I visited four stores last evening. My mother, also visiting the rest of the family for the Father's Day weekend, set out to look for a sofa table and I tagged along.

We stopped first at one of the dollar stores, failing to find anything of the right design. It was an uneventful stop, beyond learning what a sofa table would look like, if I ever saw one. "Like this, but without that."

Clearly.

We visited the big box store concern of the blue variety after that because it was the next store on the road. We're just looking for a small little thing for her lake house and you'd think this wouldn't be difficult. It needs to be about "Yay tall" and "So wide." It'll sit beneath a window, in an alcove between a dress and the closet, which was designed not to be recessed into the wall, but rather occupying a corner. She has a bench to put under it and she can happily put her makeup on.

If we can find the thing.

At the box store we found a possibilites, and ultimately purchased a small student desk one thinking that it might be the winner if nothing else presented itself. I purchased a sander for my home. Other things -- furniture tacks, cushions a card and nail polish for my grandmother -- were also selected. If I never revisit that particular store again I'll be happy. The experience and the sad expressions of others would suck your soul.

Saw a nice sunset on the way out though.

We stopped by Big Lots because, why not? They did not have a sofa table. They also did not have milk, which was needed for the neighborhood stray cat. They also did not have powdered milk. We looked. This took a while; they have a lot of groceries.

We got the cat some tuna, paid and then walked out, leaving the tuna on the counter. I walked back in, but on the perfected fake-embarrassed expression and made a self-deprecating joke. Aw shucks and all that. It probably never occurred to the cashier to note that her customers were leaving without their groceries.

So I get milk, by now we're both just beaten down by the adventure of it all so Mom stays in the car while I walk into the Foodland next door. The floor is that puke green-yellow with the irregular shapes of red and green tile that have sat in place for at least 40 years. The milk is in the back right corner as opposed to the far left wall. Apparently they did not attend the landmark dairy convention of 1982 where this all came under industry standard.

I picked up a half-gallon, around those parts it runs you $2.19, and nothing else. In the checkout line I read the WIC memo which put forth new reduced standards from the state trying to cope with an increased demand. The plan, apparently is to reduce the volume you can by, or put tighter limits on the brand items, so that they can make the money go farther for more families in need.

The memo was dated this past February, with the important parts under a highlighter. Last February the story was that not enough people were taking advantage of WIC even as more people were coming eligible.

The manager saw me reading the note at his cash register and came over to talk. There was a sadness in his eyes when he talked about the milk, my milk, and how everyone needs it. "Even if you can't afford it," he said. And I thought $2.19? It was a sobering moment.

I ended the night with a bit of silliness, starting Steve Martin's biography Born Standing Up. My boss loaned it to me after I mentioned reading an excerpt a few months ago in the Smithsonian Magazine. One of the other guys in the office writes comedy on the side -- I always try to make him laugh in the hopes that he'll use something I say -- raves about the book, and it is good.

And brisk, too. When I crawled onto the bed last night I was opening the book for the first time. When I fell asleep I was on page 60.

This morning was a McDonald's breakfast and a visit to one of the oldest churches in the area. The building doesn't feel old, they've renovated it in the last 15 years or so and have expanded out the back, but the congregation feels a bit weary. I'm related to every third person in the place, but don't know it. We give each other the vague look of recognition and small talk before and after the service and they are delightful people. But the service itself feels worn and paper-thin.

Today the song leader swapped verses halfway through a hymn without mentioning it to anyone else. I'm sure, in all my years of song leaders good and bad that has happened, but I can't recall when. The preacher, a warm man with a booming voice in the philosophical Southern style, spoke today on what kinds of fathers the world needs. An easy subject, he pulled fathers good and bad from the Biblical text to make his point, we all agreed it was a fine presentation.

And then he made "Fathers" into acrostic and, to me, that's just cheating on par with reading word-for-word from a Powerpoint presentation. Which they have in this church. I remember when the place had old gaudy brass chandeliers and an oddly compelling ceiling design (which was useful for children intent on not hearing the sermon) and a creaky old water fountain just outside the main hall, but now they put everything up on slides. It takes a while to adjust to things when you only see it two or three times a year.

After church my grandparents, my mother and I stopped by a local diner. It is a four star establishment according to Judy's Book. Apparently we're related to the owner somehow. There's a family reunion next weekend and she'll be there. But first have some chicken. And a plate full of vegetables. And red velvet cake on the house.

No one turns down the red velvet cake.

I've been in the place once before, and I recall a sports theme, but the place has gone strictly historical. We dined under a 19th Century photo of the town's namesake and I stared at a picture of the town's first postal carrier, who slogged muddy roads through the Roaring Twenties and the Depression. He has a locally famous last name and in some very distant way we'd be related too. But there are less than 1,200 people in this town even today. You're related to everybody, or your neighbors are.

Looking at the numbers on City-Data.com I am proud to note nothing more violent than assault has happened in the town in the 21st Century. Mr. Killen, the old man in the oldest picture, would be happy to hear that too. So would, perhaps, the children in the photographs of the local schools from 1928, 1943 and 1968. The diner is a time capsule -- some of those kids may have been in the restaurant at the same time, enjoying red velvet cake.

After lunch Coco modeled for the camera. She's such a cute dog. Until she turns evil.

She's really just about the sweetest shadow you've ever had. She's always underfoot. Except when there is work to be done, and then she disappears. She knows more than she lets on.

I was tasked with sanding door frames at my mother's lake house this afternoon. She is going to repaint and the old paint, a reluctant old latex, is starting to chip and peel. The white paint on the trim gave way to layers of paint underneath.

This is a house my great-grandfather, the man to the right holding a child, built more than 50 years ago as a rental property. Each time I walk into the place I think I will never create something that stands for half a century.

And suddenly I've found myself kneeling in the dust of the place, sanding smooth at least six layers of paint, peeling away the canvas of perhaps a dozen lives or more, letting that old lumber breathe again for the first time since the Eisenhower administration.

With the sanding done we put together the desk we purchased last night, where I decided the problem with assembling pressboard furniture is that they haven't figured out a way to make that more entertaining yet.

After that, I indulged in one more piece of family history. This stove was a wedding gift for my great-aunt and great-uncle in 1954.

It has been passed around the family in recent years until finally landing in the lake house, which is a relief. It was doomed to scrap before more sensible heads prevailed. How could you let that go? Have a look at the buttons. Each row corresponds to a different stove eye, and the buttons control the temperature.

Hotpoint made the appliance and they are still in business today, though the merchandise looks a bit different.

I'd love to see more of that font, and take another look at the decorative emblem. Was that not created by a disgruntled car designer? Surely he worked for Mercury before he moved to Hotpoint. And the indentations? That let you know it was a stove for a new era, where anything was possible and a woman knew the roast was going to be tender and succulent every time. Who knows how many meals that thing has made. It still cooks things perfectly, but you have to mind where you put things inside the oven.

Later in the evening on the way home I checked out the corn. Most of the farmers in this part of the world have abandoned cotton, at least for the year, and turned to soybeans and corn. Most of that will go to ethanol, absent what has been lost in the midwest corn is about to become a pricey purchase.

Mostly, though, it is odd to see the fields. You could drive through the region and predict that the commercial developments and the subdivisions would one day take over. But to see land that has held cotton and alfalfa for a century now hosting a new crop. That makes for an eerie drive home.

That's pretty much been the weekend. I'm back at my home now and ready for a 10-day-long week that will hopefully pass with ease. Here's to all you five-dayers, may your schedule stay so kind.

Come back tomorrow for a Monday of musings. There'll be less family history here, promise.