DINNER: New school year, and memories

We went out for a family dinner the other night, mostly because we like and amuse each other.
We heard about the Young Relative's first few days of school, and this year has all the hallmarks of a classic one: a know-it-all teacher with whom the Y.R. has already tangled; a parking lot controversy; an early-season sports win; and an impressive-sounding history teacher who is challenging his students' assumptions about what it means to be an American.
Of course, going out to dinner is not the same since our parents died last year, and our memories of them are never more vivid than when we're all together at a restaurant. Dad would always give the waiter or waitress a hearty greeting (I can hear him now saying, "All the better for seeing you!") and would take charge of the whole ordering process. He never loved it more than when a fellow diner stopped by the table and said something nice about one of his kids. At the end of the meal, Dad would insist on grabbing the check: "Dad pays," he would say, and we learned it was pointless to argue.
My mother, who had boundless curiosity, would have interrogated the Young Relative on every aspect of the new school year, his teachers, his athletic pursuits, whether he is getting more sleep now that school is starting later, and how exactly this lottery system for parking is supposed to work.