The Old Man dragged his green metal chair out of the shop and into the shadow of a big willow oak, as he usually did on any warm afternoon. The tree stood at the edge of his yard at the top of a bluff that overlooked an ocean of soybeans spreading to the west.
Out of sight inside its banks, a slow creek marked the border beyond. From a limb overhead, a heavy bough of muscadine vine shifted in the breeze. Yellowjackets buzzed the overripe fruit on the ground.
In the late summer heat, with shade only a notional idea of cool, the Old Man picked through his memories. He sat in his chair as his grandchildren crawled through the underbrush or ran in the fields or paused nearby on missions of their own.
As they passed, he shared wisdom in small pieces, because only in the smallest pieces could any particular wisdom be true.
His chair outlasted several chilly springs and long, hot summers, and no tornadoes got close enough to blow it away. It lived in the shed through most of winter and its enamel kept fresh and clean. It outlasted several presidents and plenty of fads. Eventually, it outlasted the Old Man himself.
I was walking through a chain department store recently and thought I’d encountered its twin. I’d often thought of the Old Man’s chair but felt it belonged to the yard and the oak and the shed it knew.
A sign over the display said the chair and matching glider were “retro,” which hurt my feelings until I discovered it meant something from the recent past, something from the ‘80s or ‘90s, which I guess is good enough since it describes me, too.
I picked up the chair to examine it and immediately put it back down. The Old Man’s chair was made from Steel of a quality and thickness that demanded a capital S. This replica was apparently stamped out of recycled beer cans, and not very many cans at that. A label on the back read: “This product contains a substance suspected by the state of California to include metal.” Not really, I made that part up. But it might as well have.
“They don’t make them like they used to,” a store employee said, passing by. The employee was of an age somewhat beyond retro but still short of archaic. Vintage, perhaps.
“The chair?” I said. “No sir, they don’t. The folks who bought the chairs these pretend to be wouldn’t have put up with what they’ve become.”
“They don’t make people like they used to, either,” the employee said.
I looked around the corner for The Boy and spied him helping a vintage customer load charcoal into his cart.
“Sometimes they do, though,” I said. “Sometimes they do.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 45 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
