Secretaries and Other Relics of the Past

I was sad to hear of the death of Rosalynne Carter, although the fact that she lived a long, full life makes me less sad.  I always pay attention to media coverage, and for decades, people seem to have said only good things about her.  I do realize that might not have been true if she died in 1983 instead of 2023.  Still, she's an inspiration, and she has been one for decades.

To put it another way, I have been happy for my tax dollars to support her and her spouse Jimmy.  Other former presidents don't seem to be making the world a better place in the way that the Carters did.  I do realize that people get to retire and that being president is a job that wears one out. 

I thought of her yesterday as we traipsed around the Tobacco Barn, a place that sells antiques and slabs of wood and old tools and old kitchen gadgets and Hummel figurines and non-antique furniture in all sorts of conditions.  It's a barn that was likely once a place where a farmer dried tobacco, and it's divided into small segments where people rent space and try to sell items.  You might find windows that purport to be from the Victorian era or you might find an old denim jacket.  Maybe you'll find a treasure that no one else has recognized and be able to buy it for a dollar, but probably not.

I thought of Rosalynne Carter and others of her generation, who grew up when these old gadgets were new.  I thought of her as we searched for a smaller desk that might be called a "lady's writing desk" in antiques circles.  We had been looking for something for my spouse to use, something we could get up into our loft.  And yesterday, we found it.

Once such a desk might have been called a secretary--maybe it still is.  We've rejected many of the ones that we've seen because the desk opens and the writing surface isn't stable.  It needs to be able to support a laptop and some books, and we've seen many of them that we weren't sure could do that.  We've seen many of them with faulty or strange hinges.  

We've seen much furniture with drawers that stick, which is a hazard when one is buying old furniture.  We loved the curved drawers of this one; we've never seen another like it.

Of course, now that we've bought it, we may be seeing curved drawers everywhere.

I am astonished at the variety of prices--yesterday, we found a desk in more banged up condition for $100, and I was tempted to get it because it was so cheap.  Most of the other desks we saw, both yesterday and on previous trips to other places have been $500.00 or more.  We paid $200 for our desk, which was $25.00 off the marked price.

I like older furniture made of wood, but there's only so much I want to pay.  I like the idea of keeping furniture out of landfills, but at the same time, some of yesterday's prices were ridiculous--over $1000.00, which is ridiculous, no matter how historical or which precious hardwoods died to make the piece of furniture.  I knew long ago that I did not have the soul of an antiques dealer/buyer/lover.

As we walked through the Tobacco Barn yesterday, I thought of how many old items have passed through our hands, from a Singer sewing machine to various tools and kitchen implements, to pieces of clothing that are now vintage, no matter how worn.  But I didn't feel sad.  I do feel some sadness about stuff I've carted around the country, just to finally get rid of it after several moves and realizing I will never use/wear/love that item.

There's probably a larger metaphor/life lesson here.  Actually, I see several competing life lessons.  But if I'm to get a walk in before I head down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College, now is the time.