Top Ten Memories of a Bedroom Set
This old bedroom set has been part of my life as long as I can remember. It once belonged to Dad’s mom, who died the year before I was born. It was promised to me, even though my sister and I shared it and a bedroom when we were kids. It moved with the Man of Steel and me when we married. When we outgrew it, it moved to our daughter’s bedroom. Last weekend it moved again, to the home she and her husband just purchased. But a few days beforehand, I used my camera to record some favorite memories about it.
10. My sister and I were quite territorial. We frequently measured the headboard and traced a line at it’s exact middle with our fingers and threatened, “If you cross this line, I’m gonna scratch your eyes out.” Then, if either of us poked so much as a toenail onto the other sister’s side, we scratched like wild cats, though our eyes are intact.
9. We were also quite territorial about whose got which drawers in the bureau. As I recall, Mom had to come in to assign them. She was good at assigning things since she was a teacher.
8. During junior high, I broke the bell of a plastic oboe on this bed post. It’s an ugly story. Trust me, you don’t want to hear it.
7. Also in junior high, I set our new hot roller set, with special steaming feature, on the mirror dresser and plugged it in. Mere minutes later, the rollers were hot and steamy, the dresser top’s finish was gone, and Mom was livid. In case your wondering, my junior high years were the nadir of my existence.
6. Also during my junior high years in the 1960s, Mom and her sister scored some free, discontinued wall paper sample books from a local paint store and used them to line every dresser drawer in both their houses. Don’t ask me why they did it or why I can’t bear to take the liners out and throw them away.
5. The first time the Man of Steel and I changed the sheets on the bed, about a week after we got home from our honeymoon, we found strings of jingle bells tucked between the fitted sheet corners and the mattress. Turned out my mother and grandmother, neither of whom ever said the word s-e-x out loud in my presence, pulled the prank. “Did you hear them jingle (insert significant eyebrow wiggle here) now and then?” Mom asked.
4. One night, when I was 7 months pregnant, 5-year-old Allen dived in between the Man of Steel and me during a thunderstorm. With the Man of Steel clinging to his side of the mattress and my stomach dangling dangerously over mine, we looked over Allen’s head and said, “We have got to get a bigger bed.”
3. When we moved into our house along the gravel road, our elderly neighbor, Marnie Goeppinger, brought housewarming gifts for our kids. She gave Allen a framed print of a Scottish soldier in a tall hat and kilt. Anne received these ceramic birds, Kay Fitch collectables, which graced the top of the mirror dresser for years.
2. Around age 4, Anne discovered that sharp metal objects could be used to “write” on wood. She practiced writing the first letter of her name numerous times and drew a self-portrait before she was caught in the act.
1. A year or so late, we heard a dreadful racket from Anne’s bedroom. We went upstairs and found her standing on the top of the mirror dressers, wearing her tap shoes, and practicing tap steps. When we told her to get down, she said, “But all the floors have carpets. This is the only place that makes the right noise.”
Oh, the memories. Here’s looking forward to more of them as Anne and her husband prepare for the birth of their first child in April. Do you have a piece of furniture with good memories attached? Share them in the comment box if you like.
