Today my "New Desk" arrived. It was shipped from Seattle, but made in China. I have to assemble it myself, which will require a mechanical screwdriver and a Genius IQ (to interpret the sparse and cryptic instructions.) New Desk is made of crappy particle board and cheap veneer. Old Desk was made of solid oak, circa WWII. It has to be "unassembled" into 3 ridiculously-heavy pieces in order to move it. Each piece requires at least 2 people to move because they are so LARGE. It also dominates whatever room it resides in because it is a HUGE, solid Oak, Government-Issue desk with a formiddable expanse measuring 5 feet across and 3 feet deep. My parents probably paid $5 for it decades ago. It was a "cast-off" from the Los Alamos School System, unloading "antiquated" furniture to make room for new. Dear Old Desk resided in our family home for as long as I can remember, in a corner of the living room, across from the built-in bookcase that housed my mother's many cookbooks and our family photo albums. My mother originally used it for her sewing machine. She taught herself how to quilt in 1976--a hobby that became her passion. I learned how to sew on that very same Bernina sewing machine, on that very same desk. (My sister still has--and uses--that very same Bernina 33 years later.)
Every two weeks, my father would push the sewing machine out of the way and use the desk to write out checks and pay bills. He kept the bills neatly-organized in a sectioned wicker basket, hidden behind a hinged-board inside one of the cabinets, originally designed to store and hold a manual typewriter.
After my sister and I left for college, my parents converted my sister's bedroom into a sewing room. My mother "upgraded" her Bernina (to the one I own and use today), so Dear Old Desk became my father's computer desk--back when monitors were the size of a large TV-set and laptops did not exist. There was enough space on the desktop for a Monitor, Tower, Printer, and Scanner, plus plenty of drawers and storage beneath for papers, manuals, and stacks of CD-ROMs.
Dear Old Desk moved into my Household just after my Divorce. My mother was ready to be rid of it. She was okay with having it around while my sister and I were young, and she and my Dad were funneling all of their available funds towards us, but once we were out of college and gainfully-employed, she was more than thrilled to replace all of her old, second-hand, cast-off furniture with new and purposeful purchases, reflecting her style and impeccable taste. At the time, I was lacking furniture and had a Rental House with a Master Bedroom large enough to accommodate Dear Old Desk (as a Single Woman, my bedroom had only one dresser and a bed). It bothered me to think of Dear Old Desk being donated to strangers who wouldn't appreciate my sentimental attachment to it, not to mention my appreciation for the fact that it was built out of Solid Oak, since that is hard-to-find these days. It has been my "Computer Desk" for 5 years. I had visions of sanding it down and re-finishing it and re-purposing it as a Craft Table/Sewing Table, but, alas, in my new house, it just doesn't "fit" anywhere.
My Household, with two tween-agers, is rapidly warping into flat-screen monitors, laptops, zip drives, MP3 Players, digital downloads, and electronic media. Gigantor--albeit sturdy--desks don't "fit" into the decor anymore. We need "space" for Living Room Aerobics, a Pool Table, and Gaming Systems that accommodate multiple players possessing gangly, clumsy, nearly-Man-sized bodies.
I rarely sew anymore, and my Scrapbooking Hobby is easily accommodated in my much larger house with the extra bedroom devoted to storing all of my crafting and sewing supplies. Dear Old Desk is occupying far too much space in the corner of my Formal Dining Room that I plan to convert into a formal "Parlor" housing my piano, my grandmother's wing-back chairs, and my china cabinet. Dear Old Desk just doesn't belong there. I have no other place for Dear Old Desk, because I am trying to free-up space for a Pool Table in the only other spare room of the House.
Dear Old Desk is beautiful, but it needs so much work to restore it to it's true glory, and it just doesn't "fit" in My House anymore. As much as I would love to restore it, I doubt I would ever find the time to do it justice. I am so sad to let it go, because it has been part of my family for so, so long (more than 30 years). I am especially sad because the product that is replacing it is so much more inferior.
I'm damn sure Dear Old Desk (bearing authentic "stamped for inventory" Block Lettering from back in the 1950s) was made in the U.S.A.
Sadly, I only possess a few items today that can make the same claim.
Well, CRAP.
After writing this, I have recognized that I may not be able to part with Dear Old Desk. I have an even Larger Master Bedroom in my New House, and with some re-arranging, could devote the far corner of my bedroom (my Home Office) to Dear Old Desk. I could also part with the never-used Twin Bed in my "Craft Room" and replace it with Dear Old Desk as a workspace...hmmmm...
I guess I will be telling my Dad I want a Palm Sander for Christmas...
