~ The Old Redwood Table ~

We got smacked upside the head by Father Time last weekend.  He sent us a little reminder that though time may pass, nothing is truly ever gone.

(He also asked us to kindly stop kidding ourselves and throw away the UnderAmour Underwear.  But that has nothing to do with this story.)

Last weekend, My Captain and I refurbished a decades-old picnic table and bench set that had been at my father’s cottage at the beach since before I was a child.  It was a table that had been stained and painted brick-red for as long as I can remember.  Battle-scarred and softened by years and years of sandy, wet, sea-salt covered butts, it was a well-used piece of furniture long-neglected and un-appreciated.  Every dinner we ever ate as a family at the beach was at this table.  We’ve all got a soft spot in our hearts for this humble, beat-up piece of wood.

But we made an amazing discovery when we started sanding it, in preparation for a new coat of paint.  It was actually made of Redwood!  And it was beautiful Redwood, at that!  All these years, hiding out under paint and stain, the ugly old picnic table was really a thing of tremendous worth and beauty!

So we switched gears and decided to sand it further, and then put a coat of clear weather protectant on it.

And in the process of all of that, we made another, no less astounding discovery.

Affixed to the bottom of one of the benches clung a piece of chewing gum, decades old, and so hardened and fossilized we had to chip away at it with My Captain’s commando Knife.

I searched my memory long and hard.  I was never much of a gum chewer, and I was certainly never one to do such a dastardly crime.   It was too fossilized to have been any of the grandchildren.  No, this crime had been perpetrated by one of my siblings or their friends.

We’re sending it to the crime lab to have it carbon dated and tested.  The truth will come out!  Dad will be vindicated, mark my words!!!

( I really hope it wasn’t me…..)