Blue Chair

Sunday night

I was walking down the street behind St. Agnes Church in Arlington, VA, when I turned to my right and noticed a comfortable-looking armchair on the sidewalk, just in front of someone's house. The chair was light blue, with a strange pattern of orange circles all over it, and it had "wings" at the top, so you could lean your head in the corner. I thought, "Maybe they are throwing it out... or maybe I could take it without anyone seeing me." I walked down the front steps toward the house, which was on a lower level than the street.

As I approached the chair a woman came to the door and asked if she could help me. At first I thought she was Margaret, my friend Gordon's mother, but she wasn't; she just looked like her. I peered in the doorway and saw that this wasn't an ordinary house; it seemed much larger on the inside, and was filled with huge old wooden cabinets that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was an antique shop. I walked in and looked at the rows of beautiful cabinets and said, "What was this place -- an apothecary shop?" The proprietor said, "No, this used to be the Willard Hotel." I spent the rest of the dream taking my time, looking at all of the interesting antiques in the cabinets, and enjoying myself.

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We have a red armchair in one corner of our living room, and my wife and I have been thinking about replacing it. We like to browse around in antique shops, and lately I've been thinking about taking a trip to Bellbuckle, Tennessee, where a strip of 19th-century stores at a railroad crossing has been turned into a nice antique mall, filled with interesting old stuff.

My brothers and their wives are about to head to South Carolina for a family wedding. I can't go, due to other obligations, but it's been on my mind. When I was a kid, we went to South Carolina every year on vacation, and I remember spending many languid summer days in the appropriately-named Summerville. I frequently walked over to the local drug store (which still contained a soda counter) where I'd order milkshakes. The store also had floor-to-ceiling pharmaceutical cabinets which probably dated back to the turn of the century, if not earlier.

Lately I've been reading "Team of Rivals," which is subtitled "The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." The Willard was a famous hotel in the Washington, D.C. of Lincoln's day. It still stands on Pennsylvania Avenue.

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