Saturday, August 16, 2008

chairs are fun

Recently I visited my cousin while he was house sitting while my Uncle (his Dad) was out of state. We shared lots of stories about growing up.

I told him about a little red chair I remembered. At our Grandma "Bubbles" house (down the street from my Uncle's house) I used to sit in a little chair-- as a small girl wearing my fancy cute dresses and crinoline slips and patent leather shoes and curled blonde hair.
( It is now naturally curly strangely enough. Maybe an effect of all those torturous years of sleeping in sponge curlers or rolled socks!).

Grandma had a room at the front of the house with lots of windows and, I think, shelves under the windows. Not sure about the configuration of the shelves, but I know that was where she kept her scrap book albums.

Yep and double yep!==Grandma was a woman before her time with the scrapbooking. She would save all the hand written letters I wrote to her- terrible grade school misspellings and all- and every drawn and colored art creation and coloring book page signed and dedicated especially to her that I had ever tossed her way! No need to wonder... I come from a long line of savers!
I remember feeling really proud as I looked at the way she had immortalized my efforts at being a good granddaughter. Incidentally, I have that scrapbook stuff from Grandma's house even now. The stuff I would look at while siting in the little chair at every visit.

Here's where the story gets even better==
I told this story to my cousin and he listened to my ramblings (much like my blog ramblings!). He finally had the chance to get a word in edgewise and seized the opportunity.

"That was probably my Dad's little red chair from when he was a little boy. He told me he used to sit in it to listen to the radio!!
[or listen to radio as it was back then, just as we now say watch TV as opposed to saying watching the TV]
He still has it. It is here in the house. "

I was shocked. Then he said, before I started my rantings again, "Would you like to see it?"

Well, would I like to breath some air is just about the same question in my opinion!!!!!!
I was sooooo excited as he went to the closet and pulled it out. I had to take a picture of it. Had to!!
I only wish there were a photo somewhere of Uncle J. as a little boy sitting in this little red chair listening to radio!!!!!!

Then he showed me some boxes of OLD books that have been in the family for 100 years stacked in another of my Uncle's closets but we did not open any of them. It was like looking into King Tut's tomb in my opinion!!! What treasure undiscovered!!! That's another story for another time...

Speaking of chairs...


Some time ago I bought this cute child size vintage chair (or chairs, depending on how you approach it all) in my travels, and now I am trying to decide what to do. I collect old Raggedy Ann dolls and I can picture them sitting in this.
What do you think?
Keep? Sell? Oh the drama of life! Anyone with any thoughts??
Just one more funny thing to share while on the subject of chairs. I was on the way to taking E. to the Rescue Horse Barn where she volunteers and we passed a huge Edison electrical repair truck. Tucked inside and up on top were two stacked wicker chairs (where they had absolutely NO business being!!!!) as if the guys had found them along the road in some one's trash and couldn't leave the opportunity behind. I wonder what their boss would say about this mode of transport? And hey! I thought I was the only one silly enough to drag home chairs!!

2 comments:

The Queen of Fifty Cents said...

Don't be too hard on the Edison guys, any of us thrifters would have done the same! Reminded me of my very first day as a school bus driver, when I got to school, let off the kids, and saw a lost kitten wailing in front of the school. I picked him up and he promptly fell asleep in my hands, so I put him in the glove compartment of my bus and took him home. My husband said we couldn't keep him because we already had two other cats, but about 20 minutes later he said he'd think about it. And for 16 years, until that wonderful kitty died of old age, he still said he was thinking about it!

Mrs.Kwitty said...

Fun story!! I love that he had that chair--made me smile!
Smiles, Karen