Eighty Years

I suppose it is time to go. It seems more difficult than expected after all these many years. Some things change, some never do; I’ve been here through a lot. I’ll miss it, but I am tired…so tired. I wonder where I’ll end up. After so long, I can hardly remember where things began.

My new life began around the year, 1940. I had to die before starting my journey as a leather office chair, but then, I never was very good at being a bull. They put me together by hand, and I was perfect. Wrapped tightly in blankets, I was moved from the farm in the foothills of the Virginia mountains to a large office with tons of activity.

I’d say things got really interesting a few years into my stead in the office. So many people came and went in a rush that for the first five years, it was a blur of suits, uniforms, shouting, yelling orders, even crying at times. But then things took a turn, and everyone was almost instantly celebratory. It was probably another six or seven years before anything terribly dramatic took place.

The 1950’s made sense at first, and then they didn’t. Virtually everyone in the office was white, and almost all of them were men. Everyone got along well for the most part. It was terribly confusing when word came around that one group of people were persecuting another group simply for the color of their skin. I’m brown. I never really understood this, and to this day find it to be strange and disappointing. Perhaps its easier being a chair.

It was the 1960’s. There was about a two-week period where everyone was quite upset, and then after that, for some reason, no one smoked cigars in the office any longer. The weather hadn’t changed, but folks kept saying it was cold for years, even after that nice guy got shot. And even though things were a bit somber for a while, one man shared his dream, while a whole bunch of folks said they went to the moon and another group was working to build up a stock of wood or something. I’d been around for three decades already, but this one was just shy of crazy.

Another war. When I started there was war, but this was different. In the late 60’s and early 70’s, it seemed like people with cameras and microphones had taken over the world; at least my world. Things in the office were tense, but at night, I often could see flashlights and fires and hear chanting and singing. They tried to fire the boss, but he ended up resigning, and then another new boss took over, and the war ended.

The 1980’s and even the 1990’s dragged on with what became almost normal drama for the office. We had four different bosses through this period, and what a group. There was a farmer, an actor, a military man, and I think a socialite. Somewhere along the way, we had a few more wars because that seemed to be the office norm, and around the turn of the millennium things got serious when I heard an entire office building crashed. I suppose this was around the time that I realized I was getting up there in age, and maybe it was time to retire.

Another almost two decades went by in relative quiet before the next wave of madness took place, and I’d had enough. The current boss was louder than any of the previous ones, and this seemed to excite a lot of people. When they said he was going to be replaced, a whole group of folks attacked a nearby building, and it seemed like the entire world was falling apart. Things did calm down after a bit, but I’d had it. It was time.

The new boss started, and I was given my wish. I was packed up again in blankets and carried out of the office for the last time. The trip was dark and long, but when I emerged, I was home. The sun stretched out over the horizon of a farm in the Virginia mountains, and I could finally be at peace. On the morning of my second day of retirement, I sat beneath the flag that flanked me these last eighty years and heard a cow mooing in the distance. I am reminded of so many things, but none so important as the honor of serving as an office chair in this beautiful land.