If I was sitting next to my Father at the dinner table (which I usually was because he wanted me close by - or what we'd now call 'striking distance'), and I 'broke' one of those rules - like playing with my food instead of eating it (especially on the liver-and-onions nights) he would forcefully, not so much as to break skin, stab me in the back of my hand with his fork. Some lessons are obviously learned quicker that others.
One of the games we would play between us brothers was something we learned at Camp Mohican - the Boy Scout Camp we all went to in the summers. It was a challenge thing we called 'gangplank'. If any one of us noticed that someone else had leaned their knife up against the rim of their dinner plate, we'd yell 'GANGPLANK', and the one who said it first got the desert of the criminal defendent. Fun memories, and here I am 65+ years later with decent table manners. Go figure...
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