And This Little Chair Was Just Right...

Recognize that line?  It is from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. 

The other night Claude and I were watching Frasier re-runs on TV. One of the episodes was Frasier buying his father a beautiful recliner to replace the cloth one patched with duct tape that his father brought when he came to live in Frasier's expensively decorated apartment. Frasier's dad was grateful for the effort but really wanted his old, worn out lounge chair. He listed all the memories he had while sitting in that chair.

This cause me brain to go into memory overdrive. I looked at my hubby stretched out on the sofa and me curled up on the loveseat feverishly crocheting while we watched TV at the end of a very long day. Then I remembered...

During our 41 years of wedded bliss Claude and I have each purchased for the other a chair as a gift. I reflected on those two chairs and how they really fit our personalities. Claude and I are each very different people. Through the years we have learned that our differences add strength to the other person. These two chairs really illustrate those differences in our personalities.

I've blogged before about the rocking chairs given to me and to our daughters at the birth of our children. Therefore, this blog will not contain those stories. Instead, I'm going to focus on other chairs in our life starting with these 'chair gifts'.

Claude gave me my chair years before I gave him a chair. It is a beautiful wingback chair that has always sat in our bedroom. I just loved the look of a wingback chair. Always have and always will. They are usually not the most comfortable chair and, to me at least, present a more formal feel. In our lives I believe I'm probably the more strict one. More prone to be careful about what I do and say and the mannerisms I choose to use.

The chair I gave Claude is an overstuffed brown leather chair with a big automan.

Years ago Claude took me for a medical procedure. It was an outpatient thing. When we arrived, the doctors office was 1 1/2 hours behind schedule. We curled up on a big, brown overstuffed leather love seat and promptly feel sound asleep. We awoke when they told us it was time for me to go back for the procedure. It was some of the best sleep I've ever gotten in my life. Claude felt the same way.

Father's Day rolled around and I told Claude he needed a chair like that for his Father's Day present. I also told him he needed to help me pick it out so it fit just right. We found one and have enjoyed it to this day. It sits in our basement with an enormous afghan I crocheted for Claude across the automan. It is just a truly comfortable chair to snuggle into.

My hubby is a comfortable kind of guy. He is much more laid back about life than I am and he does love to take naps. He is also a big guy.

I really love our chairs and how they fit our personalities. I never thought of that until the Frasier episode. But it is just logical, really, since we bought them for a gift that fit each others likes.

Then, my brain kept up its thinking about chairs in our lives. I thought of a few other chairs that touched my life.

When I was a little girl, before I even started to school, we lived in DeRidder, Louisiana. My parents lived in a white house and down the street lived Mr. Willy. He loved to make things out of wood. He made us a beautiful rocking horse and two little rocking chairs. One rocking chair was smaller and light in color. The other rocking chair was a little larger but still very kid-sized and was darker in color. Those were wonderful rocking chairs.

When Claude went to Utah to get married, he and I walked down the road to his grandmother's home. Claude grew up out in the country. There was an acre field between his parent's home and his Gramma Chris' home. I entered Gramma Chris' home for the first time with my soon-to-be hubby. Gramma Chris was sitting in a wonderful chair. She only walked with a cane and didn't stand. She held out her hands as she sat in that chair and called me over. She took my face in her hands and gave me a sweet kiss. Claude told me before we left Louisiana to get married that this was how Gramma Chris would greet me. He was exactly right.

The chair Gramma Chris was sitting in was made for her by her hubby. It is very, very study and has a neat feature. The arm rests extended out the back of the chair. Each arm has three knotches cut out of the back behind the back of the chair. There is a wood piece that fits across the back of the chair and rests in a set of the notches. By moving this wood piece farther back the chair can actually recline a little with each moving of the wood. I'm not sure that describes it well, but it is a neat feature of this chair so lovingly made for Ruby by Earl.

While we lived in Maryland, Bonnie and Evan, Claude's parents determined we should have this family heirloom. They created a crate and found a way to have it shipped from Utah to Maryland. It sat in our family room in Maryland and not sits in Claude's office. I love this sturdy chair and I'm particularly happy it is where Claude sees and enjoys it every day of his life.

There is another chair in our home that has a lot of sentimental value.  This chair belonged to my mother, Mimi. She got it from her mother, Gramma Fisch. We had it in Mimi and Papa's apartment when they first moved here. However, Mimi was not using it properly with her Alzheimers and we traded it for a sturdy chair we had in our home. We brought Mimi's rocking chair to our home for safe keeping. It had a cracked leg that Mimi and wrapped with a strip of old fabric to try and secure. Claude took the legs apart and fixed a new piece for the broken one, stained the chair, and recovered the seat. It now sits in our guest bedroom.

The last chair I have a picture of is a chair that is currently in Papa's apartment. 

Years ago Papa's career was driving long haul moving vans. He worked for Mayflower Van Lines first. He had his girls nicknames painted on the cab of his truck: Sana Dee (Sandra Darlene), Doogie (Arliss June) and Neffie (Laurel Lyneth). Later he drove for United Van Lines.

On one of his runs to the New England area, the people were going to leave a chair Papa knew his wife would love. They gave it to Papa and he carefully brought in back to Louisiana as he made moving runs. Mimi did love the chair, she took it apart and reupholstered it.

Junie, Neffie and I all loved this chair. It is a very comfortable chair and I think it reminds of us that part of our lives when Papa was gone a lot of the time.

Mimi actually put up a huge map of the continental United States on the wall of the dining room. Then she got a ball of yarn and some nails. Every destination Papa was assigned she would note with a nail in that map. Then she would take the yarn from his last stop and pull it to the newest nail and wrap it around that new nail. The end result was a map showing where our father was going and where he had traveled. It was a wonderful visual way to keep our family together even with many miles between us.

I do remember one other funny chair story. While I do not have a picture of this chair, I do have its history. Claude and I finally were able to purchase our own little dinette set. We lived in a 2-bedroom apartment in Sunnymead, California. This cute little dinette had a white table top on a yellow metal pedestal stand. It had 8 sides to the top. There were 4 bright yellow naugahide chairs that swiveled on their pedestals for this table. I loved this first little dinette set of ours.

One day my hubby was kneeling in the seat of one of these chair facing the back of the chair. He determined he would spin while in this position. Now, he was also talking on the phone at the time. We didn't have cordless phones in those days. This phone was a wall phone. As Claude spun the chair went out of control, Claude went out of control, I started to laugh as they spun around and separated company. Claude left the chair and rolled onto the floor. During all of this hilarity he never missed a bit of his phone conversation. The person on the other end had no idea what was happening in front of me. I can still see it all clearly today.

So there you have it. A bit of my personal history in chair-ese.