The Sofa That Became a War Crime
Sometime around 1970, my mother decided it was time to upgrade the décor from the furnishings inherited with the house they purchased from the family dentist. Out with the dated floral striped wallpaper and traditional sofa, in with contemporary country casual.
The 1950s Formica table made way for a freeform piece hand carved from a single log. We acquired a set of heavy earthenware dishes that provided the perfect plating for my unpalatable experiments in soybean cuisine and homemade yogurt.
And the living room now sported a sturdy Sears type set with sofa, armchair, and footstool made from rustic pine and covered with plaid red-and-gold upholstery that wouldn’t recognize a natural fiber if one ever dared to appear. My father’s gold recliner chair sitting next to the World Book encyclopedias fit right in, and my mother’s reading chair with its tattered flaxen bronze upholstery lent an air of old world class to the room.
Finishing touches: braided rugs from either LL Bean or the Vermont Country Store and a collection of hand crocheted afghans and pillow covers from Aunt Addie (she called them “Africans,” confusing in my youthful understanding of the civil rights movement).
Some time passed, and my widowed father came to live with us in the late 1980s due to illness. New parents, we had just purchased our first home and the baby enjoyed the wide open spaces in the almost empty rooms.
Dad offered whatever items we might like from the house. Thinking that familiar objects might make the transition easier for him (and let’s be honest: we needed Stuff), we took the living room furniture, the formal dining room suite complete with sideboard and china cabinet, and the upright piano that we later learned could not be tuned.
The plaid sofa and chair were relegated to the partially finished basement area that the previous owners assured us made a terrific playroom for the kids. Our plan was to donate them to the first child who needed furnishings when they moved out.
Except no one wanted it. Either they had moved a thousand miles away and it was too difficult to transport, or they were sharing a place with people who already had furniture, or they just didn’t like it.
Being solidly built and having seen relatively little use over the years, it’s still in quite good condition. There are a couple of scratches that could be buffed out and honestly it could use a good vacuuming; still Mom’s eye for lasting quality has been vindicated. But we want to downsize now.
So when the local relief agency put out a call for donations for displaced refugees, I sensed an opportunity. I described the furniture and a couple of other items we wanted to donate, and their representative came to the house.
She took one look at the sofa and exclaimed, “We can’t ask refugees to sit on THIS!” Turning to me, she added, “Haven’t they been through enough?”
