Best Seat in the House

By Jennifer Poenix

This Saturday on Between You and Me with Heidi Holtan, we're talking about furniture. Maybe it was something you grew up with. Maybe it's a piece you love to use now.

My parents got married in 1979, and they furnished their brand new house exactly as you'd expect. Macrame plant hanger. Long, tweed curtains. Brown somewhat shag carpet. Velvet-y rust colored couch. TV stand with room to store LPs, which got played on the long stereo, designed to look like a really fancy wooden cabinet.

And then there were the chairs. Two plaid armchairs - that same "rust" color with brown accents. One was sort of tall and skinny. The other shorter and wider. Like Bert and Ernie. There was a matching hassock too. You may have called it an ottoman. We called it a hassock.

As the story goes, my dad would sit in one of them every night, and he would take off his newly acquired wedding band and set it on the arm of the chair. The dog would often sit with him.One night, the ring was gone. Vanished. My mom always maintained that the dog ate it.

Many years later, after the chairs no longer matched the house's decor, my grandpa moved to a nursing home. A few of them actually, and in a few different towns. (Grandpa was not an easy man to please, you see.) He ended up with one of the plaid chairs. The chair probably traveled at least 250 miles in this whole process.

When it came time to finally dispose of the chair, my dad decided to look for his ring. He took the chair apart. I mean, he really demolished the thing. Way, deep down inside of that chair, he found his wedding ring. Ta-da!

Every piece of furniture has some kind of story, and I hope you'll share yours this Saturday morning on Between You and Me, from 10am-noon.