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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
bygones
7:20 AM
when i was a kid, my step father (ed) refinished furniture and sold antiques. many people assumed our house was furnished with exquisite and rare pieces from the turn of the century. untrue! sure, sure we had old furniture. antiques. but they were raggedy old relics ed would drag home from the store to fill a void in one of our rooms. a customer would come to ed describing a need. explaining just the spot in his home where he could use a secretary, hall tree, hutch etc... if there was nothing hiding in the dusty cluttered corners of the furniture shop, ed would search the corners of his memory....inventory-ing our house until he thought of just the thing to help out his customer. it was not uncommon for me to come home from school and see dents in the carpet where our sideboard used to reside; piles of dishes, napkins, placemats on the floor beside the strange looking empty space. we were burgled by our own dad. he'd take it to the shop, strip it, stain it, finish it, until it was pristine and then he'd sell it. eventually he would bring home another hunk o junk for us to store our stuff; doors falling off, knobs missing, rippled wood, cracked legs and all. you know, the cobbler's kids have no shoes. 3 Comments |
