An Adirondack chair survives despite losing odds

     Many years ago my father crafted by hand an Adirondack chair, with help from my brother. It was a comfortable wooden chair with hand-beveled edges and scalloped backrest. My brother remembers telling Dad that the screws might be too short, but they went forward with the project anyway using a serious application of wood glue.

     The chair performed admirably for several years with many a family member taking time to sit and relax in it. But then, shortly after my father passed away, my cousin sat down in it – perhaps a bit too hard. Much to his surprise, and to my brother’s amusement, the chair collapsed like a stack of matchsticks and my cousin found himself sitting on the ground amidst a pile of lumber that in no way resembled an Adirondack chair.
 
      Fortunately, my cousin avoided serious injury – except perhaps to his pride. However, the chair did not fare as well and it sat in pieces there on the farm for close to a decade. For some time it lay upon the deck, no doubt waiting for one of us to take the time to try and fix it. It later migrated onto the top of the air conditioning unit, until a repair of the compressor necessitated its relocation once again – this time to the soil and pine needles on the ground below.
 

     There it sat, the skeleton of a once-honorable chair, exposed to the elements and to the insects and to time. The earth nearly reclaimed that chair. Had I not spotted one of its pieces while doing yard work one day it would surely have not been long for this world. I began digging and within short order had recovered all but one piece! The boards were soft, worm-damaged, stained and in the early stages of decay but I dragged them all home anyway.
 

     I pieced it back together and it was indeed a sad sight, a lilting, frail-looking conglomeration of rotting planks propped against a wall. I began to doubt the wisdom of trying to resurrect such a thing. My wife was sure that the remains were destined to continue their decay – only now in our yard. "You’ll never get that thing back together!" she said. But undaunted, I went to work reassembling it, using the original screws to tack it back together just to see what I had.

     I replaced the missing board and used a file to bevel the edges so that it would match, imagining while I worked that Dad was smiling down upon me, no doubt chuckling over my lack of craftsmanship.

     It gave me blisters. 

     I used longer screws and then hit it with the pressure washer. To my amazement that old wood seemed to slough its skin; rich-grained, fresh timber now revealed itself.  

     My wife stood in awe of its majestic beauty. “I never thought you’d get that thing back together. I’m impressed!”
 
     I obsessed over that chair for weeks, feeling my father’s spirit in it – and in me. I would stand and stare at it, much to the bewilderment of my spouse. I tried to fix some areas of decay using the wrong type of wood putty, which left funny yellow areas. I’m certain that Dad found that particularly entertaining. A coat of paint would cover it, but I decided to simply use a sealant so that all the blemishes and imperfections as well as the original wood grain could show through.
 
     We all now enjoy sitting in my father’s chair, looking much like it did the day he finished it, a family heirloom to be handed down to my grandchildren  – providing the screws hold!
 
     Now as I sit in that wonderful chair, I realize that within weeks my cousin whom I have not seen in close to a decade is coming to visit. The cousin.
  
     I have a special place for him to sit, if he has the nerve.

     Right here in Dad’s chair.