Researching background to this Tighsolas website, I discovered a  copy of the Sears-Roebuck Catalogue from 1906. 'This Book is Free" it says on the dark green and red cover. "The real value of this book is shown in every price quotation."

I flipped through the pages to see what average middle class people like the Nicholsons could purchase in the 'Tighsolas era'. 

The 1000 plus pages were cluttered with black and white pictures of rings, crystal, silverware, clocks and watches, clothes, hats (high on the head and a few years behind the latest fashion) and shirtwaists and sleepwear; bizarre medical devices, ointments and pills, beds (with metal headboards) and big clunky barrel-shaped washing machines, and typewriters, and 'talking machines' trumpeting their family appeal, and some rather rococo curio cabinets and assorted tables and chairs, also some rotund, bumpy reed chairs for sitting on the porch that all, frankly, looked so very familiar. I was struck with deju vu.

Yes, I'd seen all this stuff before, and not too long ago, but where?

Then it came to me, in a big Edison lightbulb blast! At Finnegan's, our local outdoor flea market and antique emporium. Just the Saturday before. 

Who would have guessed that so much stuff in the catalogues of the 1900 era (Sears or Eaton's) would one hundred years later end up in delightfully touristy outdoor markets in sunny well-to-do suburbs and be sold for inflated prices to middle class family types out for an enjoyable Saturday afternoon sojourn bargain hunting, preferring to pass time  in the 'old-fashioned way' rather than joining the flocks of shoppers at Walmart on the highway. I overheard a man say to his wife, as he inspected an old trunk, "My granddad  had one of those." A piece of old 'junk' usually means something to  people because it evokes certain  nostalgia-tinged emotions. (Unless they are buying out of knowledge or  greed.) They buy on impulse and lovingly sand and varnish the piece and proudly situate it in a place of honour in their home as a tribute to the past and their ancestors, or sell it the following year at their own garage sale.

The other day I walked into our local Walmart with my husband (something I had vowed NEVER to do) and said to myself, rather hypocritically, "Everything in this store is going to end up in a landfill somewhere in about twenty years' time." I really do hate Walmart.

It's clear, this modern mass-produced polymer-based  stuff, stuff and more STUFF will  never make it 100 years,  'built in obsolescence' gone berzerk!

Which brings me to my chairs (for this essay is about chairs and I can't figure out a graceful way to glide into the subject).

I like chairs and I like chair design. A chair is the essence of furniture: essential, functional, a place to plunk your tired ass. Except for the 'dentist' and 'electric' varieties, chairs are friendly, pleasant-enough-looking and trustworthy things, which we often take for granted. In this way they resemble our spouses.. But some chairs, the modern minimalist ones, are almost abstract eye-candy, each a pure idea, much like our fantasy mates!

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