We stopped by Bill Wood's Ace Hardware this morning to see how his going out of business sale was progressing.
Bill showed me some items that he had pulled out of the back of the store. One was a desk chair that he bought used in 1952.
The base was all metal, obviously built by skilled craftsmen who planned on it lasting for at least half a century.
This chair is in stark contrast to an office chair that I put together not long ago. There wasn't much metal in it. I would guess that in less than five years the chair I but together will be worthless.
The screws will no longer hold in the plastic which will likely be cracked by then.
You likely won't even be able to give away the mostly plastic chair to Goodwill. It will end up in the trash as so many modern goods do.
The chair brought to mind the furniture that my father's company, National Furniture, used to turn out in Mount Airy, NC.
The furniture was built to last. The dresser to the left was also probably built around 1952. It has been in seven houses so far, including three in Canada.
We had it refinished a few years ago and doesn't look like it has raised a few families.
It is really pretty sad that we are in a throw-away world these days.
Products in the days of my parents were expected to last for years and years. I think my mother had a washing machine that lasted for thirty years.
Unfortunately our throw away ethic isn't limited to furniture and chairs. Business relationships which used to last for years can change overnight these days. Loyalty is a seldom known commodity.
Trusted, hardworking employees find that companies often treat them as disposable.
There was a time when people were proud of their work and the products that they produced. Making furniture or office chairs was an honorable way to make money. Employers felt lucky to have good employees willing to work hard.
Today it seems that the only honor goes to our celebrities, sports stars, and CEOs these days. Even that fame is fleeting since it is pretty easy to fall out of favor. Companies rise and fall, and more wealth seems to go to the few. Young employees are often chewed up and spit out.
I can still remember sitting around the television at night with my parents watching the news. Newsmen were greatly respected as were reporters and editors of newspapers. Their opinions were trusted. Those opinions were also expected to stand the test of time.
In our world today opinions and even filmed news reports are examined with a skeptical eye. Often what you read today is turned on its head tomorrow.
Yet the one thing that seems to survive is the digital world. Maybe one day the picture of the dresser or the office chair will be all we have left to cherish. As long as the servers keep running, the Internet digital archive will stand the test of time far better than a flimsy office chair.
Everything else will have fallen apart because the effort to produce cheaper and cheaper goods will have finally gone to its logical end.
We will have a chair that lasts for the one sitting where you try it out after you have bought it and put it together. The next day you have to get a new one.
Somehow I think the generation of my mother and father would be disappointed.
On the other hand, at least our cars last longer. Of course they aren't exactly cheap.
