Here’s another Flea Market Find–a small rectangular footstool or bench with a paper rush seat. It looked fairly old and well worn when I found it. I rescued this little gem for practically NOTHING at the sale. It will be just the right thing to use once I repair the torn and sagging seat.
And so, I begin to cut away the old worn-out pieces of paper fiber. A piece here, a piece there; I remove the old dusty newspaper the furniture maker used to shape and support the inside of the seat. The pieces are packed in there pretty tight and hard to get to. As I work my way through and the pieces begin to grow larger, I find a section of newspaper that doesn’t turn to dust in my hand.
The print may be really small to read and hard to see, but here is a section of The Atlanta Journal, which “Covers Dixie Like The Dew” in Atlanta Georgia, even as far back as June 22, 1941. That’s the date on this piece of paper anyway.
There were other pieces of paper I found with dates at about the same time advertising fabric, cars, clothing, tools, and appliances at 1941 prices. The social section I found had a few wedding announcements with pictures as well as news articles of the day. My favorite was the miscellaneous section in which a reader could purchase a fine double door, all porcelain refrigerator in A1 condition for the price of $79.50, an extra large crocheted bedspread with a daisy pattern, used building materials, a stationary bike, a Hoover vacuum cleaner and a Luger pistol. If I was looking for a place to sleep, I could call the six digit telephone number and find a room with a meal for about the same price I’d pay for a specialty coffee today.
And then I did the math. I’ll estimate that it was at LEAST seventy-plus years ago when this little bench was restored or built. Creative possibilities for story ideas and My, oh….MY….!
I’m saving most of the paper scraps to look through and glean some story ideas from, because this was just like finding a little piece of history in a most unexpected place. As I work on repairing the seat of the bench, I’ll select some headlines of my own from a stack of newspapers in my recycling bin and pack those into the padding for the seat as well.
Maybe seventy plus years from now, if someone should discover this little bench at a yard sale or flea market find, they will have a Most Creative Experience, too!
Paula B. Puckett 