Notes from Maine - 2025/11/23
My aunt called last night. When I answered the phone, I was hoping it would be her. She’s staying at Mom’s house at the moment and I was eager to hear how their day went. That’s not why they called—the call was about a stool.
Fortunately for all involved, it was the kind of stool you put your feet up on. My aunt talked of a heavy oak footstool with scrolling. I knew it before it was even described. It has always been a part of my life. In the house I grew up in, the stool sat in front of the yellow chair at first. When the yellow chair went for a reupholstering vacation at another aunt’s house, the stool lived in front of the rocking chair. When the yellow chair came back as the big brown chair, the stool retook its original place.
When I bought my house, Mom brought the stool with some other castoff furniture to help me fill some of the rooms. I don’t actually use it as a footstool much. If I have to clean a ceiling or repair a light fixture, I stand on it, but that’s about all the use it gets anymore.
A few years ago when my father lived here, he loved talking about the stool. My parents encountered it at a music festival fifty years ago. The hippies selling footstools were demonstrating the strength of the model with the help of their van. One of the wheels of the van was perched atop a stool. “Last stool you’ll ever need,” a sign read. Dad bought it on the spot and carried it around for the rest of the festival.
It is very sturdy. The oak it’s constructed from is nearly two inches (five centimeters) thick. I don’t know how the legs are attached, but they’ve never shown any signs of fatigue or wobble. I believe it could easily still carry the weight of a van if need be.
The finish on top of this oaken behemoth was flaking a few years ago at the same time I was “clear coating” a pinball playfield. I use a two-part automotive clear coat that’s capable of withstanding glancing blows from a case-hardened steel ball. Mom took some of the extra clear coat one day and brushed it on top of the stool. That repaired finish will outlive us all.
My aunt and Mom were calling to see if I knew where the stool was.
It took me a while to track it down. It doesn’t live in my living room. It usually resides wherever I used it last. Was I dusting the back of a high shelf? Was I changing a lightbulb in the hall? I wandered around the house for ten minutes while I talked to them. They had been wandering all over Mom’s house all day, looking for the heavy thing.
I finally found it. It was in the closet of Dad’s room (I have no idea why).
I carried it to the kitchen to take a picture. By that point, I’m not sure if either of them really believed that I had found the actual stool, so I wanted to take a picture in a place that has a built-in time stamp. These kitchen counters are only a year old, so that would narrow down when the photo had been taken. Also, my sister gave me an amaryllis in October, which further shrinks the timeframe.
I sent them both the picture as proof-of-life for the stool.
Do people still use footstools? I keep a couple of blankets folded and stacked on my coffee table, so if I’m going to put my feet up I usually put them there. I just asked Google if it had any pictures of a van with one wheel parked atop a footstool. It asked me if I was feeling okay.
Footstool and Amaryllis (no van in sight)
