Kid Town!

  I suppose that some folks will accuse me of living in the past.  It is probably true.  At times, I ponder if I was born in the wrong era.  The newfangled ways of doing things not only befuddles me but usually aggravates me a bit.  I prefer the tried and true methods of most everything.  This is fine by me but it does seem to irritate some folks a bit.  "You are living in the olden days" is a phrase that I hear quite often.  Oh, well.  Too bad.
   
  This bit of nostalgia does not just apply to my ways of doing things, it also becomes evident with items that I hold dear.  I am still  in the midst of creating a play area for the grandlittles and their upcoming visit.  Most of the furniture was stripped from Darling Daughter's old bedroom to provide plenty of space.  This left me with a blank room that was in need of some place to stash a multitude of what are now called "retro toys".  These toys are ones that my kids used when they were toddlers. The "antique toys" term applies to my toys and those of my parents and grandparents.  (Just thought I would toss that in there for clarity!)  Wow!  I am antique!  Anyway, while contemplating the problem, I had a brilliant idea!  Kid Town!  I could use Kid Town as a low shelf!  

  Kid Town is a very sturdy low bench that is from my grandmother's childhood.  The term "Kid Town" was affixed to the bench because it was on this bench that all the kids sat during meals.  The bench was pulled up to the old table on a farm that her folks (my great-grandparents) had out "north of the Bay".  These great-grandparents had a fine old house in Biloxi but also had a sprawling farm about twenty miles northward.  During the summer months, most of the kids were plunked out at the farm to take care of the farm animals and plant the crops.  My great-grandparents would travel back and forth once a week or so to check on the kids.  Yep, it does seem strange but that was the norm back in the day.  Kids were a form of free labor.  It was not unusual for parents to send kids far away to pick cotton, strawberries or whatever crop was in season.  My grandmother and younger siblings were sent to do the farming while her older siblings stayed to help in the hat shop that Great-grandfather owned.  It was just good business practice to do such.  No one batted an eye at the kids fending for themselves for a week at a time.  The bench was a major piece of furniture albeit a handmade one.

  Years later, my grandmother fell heir to the bench and she used it to hold her potted ferns and begonias.  My granddaddy kept the bench in repair and later it was passed on to my mother.  Mom, like her mother, used it to hold plants except when there was a huge family gathering. Then, as many times in its past, the bench was called into use to seat kids at the dining table.  Years later, I became the proud owner of Kid Town and its colorful history.  I have been labeled the "Keeper of Weird and Wonderful Things" so perhaps Kid Town falls in that category.

  As Mark and I toted the heavy bench into the room, I thought of how fitting it was that a bench called Kid Town was being placed in a playroom of sorts.  A new generation of kiddos will be making use of the bench that is well over a hundred years old!  Being as I do not know the origin of the bench and the exact date when it was made, I can only estimate but this is at least the fifth generation of kids to use the bench....it may well be a sixth or seventh.  Yep, I am the Keeper of Weird and Wonderful Things and I do probably live in those olden days.  Face it....I AM antique!