I often think of my Grandpa when I sit in his chair we inherited. Dilapidated-looking as it is, it still rocks; the cushions are still soft and its kind like he was. If he could hear the creaks it makes now, he would probably grin and make a good joke about it. He might even pull out his harmonica and play us a tune while rocking and creaking in his chair. Life was simple and good with Grandpa.

Like Martin Crane, another connoisseur of old chairs, I love meaningful things; not necessarily new things, or things with fancy titles, but good things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h30gtsx9Z_0 No, I don’t mind an ugly chair.

A news anchor or two recently commented on how small town people are

Note the halos

generally uneducated and uninformed about the ways of the world…you know how some journalists speak in various shades of yellow…and when they start using words like folksy,  I usually tune them out. I just wonder if they had sat in my small town Grandpa’s chair for a while, looked at all the small town houses (and big city bridges) he designed over the years and considered the foxholes he spent time in– if they would have learned something about small town people with old chairs. Not everyone can get comfortable in furniture marred with duct tape and cracks —old surfaces are a distraction to some who have trouble seeing their worth.

Maybe those journalists don’t know how many old chair owners listened to their statements and wondered if the education that put them in their anchor’s chair was a lot like how many products are made today—built to break?

I’m all for education of all kinds: formal, self-education—many of us are a combination of the two. But there’s no replacing wisdom.