I've written quite a few that will be coming out in the next few months. After they hit the newstands, I'll post them here. The two that have already hit the newstands ("Snow Dome King," & "Best Microbrew"), will be posted here the next two weeks.
Also, coming in the next month or two:
"Morning Radio Wars" (a study of the Chicago morning radio marketplace)
"Unhandy Man" (a suburban man-esque admission of my handiness)
"Returning Home: Heidelberg" (the story of my return to my high-school hometown of Heidelberg Germany)
"Men Who Pamper Themselves" (trying to understand the concept, with interviews of men who like to go to spas)
and
"Breaking up with Technology" (my reaction to that Nokia commercial of the woman and her cell-phone)
But this weekend, I wanted to do something else.
Yesterday marks the 35th anniversary of the first episode of "All in the Family." That was a groundbreaking television show, and one that meant a lot to my family. Two years ago I wrote an article for Lake Magazine inspired by that show. I thought it would be appropriate to re-post it today.
Have a great weekend, and Go Bears.
Men and their Chairs
By Rick Kaempfer
From the Early Summer 2004 issue
20th Century Man and his Chair
“Edith, the chair.”Those three immortal words uttered time and time again by Archie Bunker during the run of the television series “All in the Family” said more about the relationship between men and their chairs than an entire documentary could have said. How universal was the concept of a man and his chair? After the show went off the air, the Smithsonian Institute asked for and received permission to permanently display it in Washington.
Oh, Edith’s chair is there too, but anyone who watched the show knows that Edith wasn’t emotionally attached to her chair. To use perhaps the world’s first basketball-chair analogy since Bobby Knight left Indiana, Edith’s chair is to Archie’s chair like Scottie Pippen is to Michael Jordan. Her chair has a certain amount of greatness, but it’s really more noted for it’s proximity to Archie’s chair. It is honored to be on the same stage as greatness. Make no mistake about it; Archie’s chair is the centerpiece of that house, that family dynamic, and that television series. America related to it because nearly every home in America had its own version of Archie’s chair. And it was always, and this is not an exaggeration, it was always the chair of the man of the house. Others in the home may have dared to sit in it, but they knew in their hearts that their behinds were only renting the space. My home was certainly like that growing up. We gave my father his chair for his 50th birthday. It wasn’t that special of a chair, just a standard beige cloth covered Lazy Boy. However, the moment we gave it to him, it was understood that this wasn’t a chair to share. He placed it in the best spot in the family room, with the best view of the television, and placed an end table next to it. His behind and his drink had permanent residences until the day he died.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression. My dad did let other people sit on his chair…as long as he wasn’t in the room. My brother and I used to fight over the chair at dinner time. We would race through dinner, shoving the food into our mouths as quickly as humanly possible, because we knew about the prize that awaited the “winner.” Dad always took his sweet old time eating, and there was a golden thirty to forty five minute window of chair occupancy available on a first-come, first-serve basis. The winner would get kicked out of the chair the second Dad entered the room, but those glorious moments in the big chair, in the “Dad” chair, were so symbolically precious. It wasn’t as comfortable as the couch and your time there was limited, but when you sat in the chair you were the man. The man of the house.
To this day when my mother is flipping through the channels and she comes across a rerun of “All in the Family” she is compelled to stop. It isn’t the appeal of Archie, Edith, Gloria or Meathead. It’s the chair. Seeing the way the family behaves around Archie’s chair reminds her of how things used to be in her house. It brings her back to the fondest time in her life, when everyone still lived in the house, when her boys fought over the chair, her daughter made fun of the boys for fighting over the chair, and Dad ruled the house from his beige cloth covered throne.
21st Century Man and his Chair
Archie Bunker and my father are no longer with us, but the legacy of man and his chair continues to this day. WJMK-Chicago radio personality and Berrien Springs resident Fred Winston knew exactly what I was talking about when I called him up to talk “chairs.” His chair is seventeen years old and may need to be repaired soon. “A little duct tape may be required,” he concedes, “but my chair is a womb like island in a sea of societal cacophony.” His deep baritone voice could have been narrating a National Geographic special as he said those words to me. It was as if he were describing a baby kangaroo poking his head out of his mother’s pouch.Unlike 20th Century Man’s chair, 21st Century Man’s chair may end up in the basement or a private office, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the emotional attachment a man feels for his own chair. Winston treasures his because it’s been with him through thick and thin. “I recovered there, I napped there, and I held my puppy there. I’ll never get rid of it. My wife actually refers to it as my Archie Bunker chair and makes noises about getting rid of it. That’s when the foot comes down,” Fred told me. When I told him that Archie Bunker would be proud of his manly stand, Fred said, “I hope that my chair ends up in the Smithsonian too when I’m not around anymore.”
Unlike Archie Bunker, Fred allows other people to sit in his chair because he likes to spread his joy. Other men do not necessarily share Fred’s largesse. Chicago Tribune photographer and Miller resident Geoffrey Black has a more traditional view of his favorite chair. When I asked him if he allows anyone else to sit in his chair he didn’t hesitate with an answer: “Never. If they do they receive a scornful eye.”
Black’s oversized leather chair normally resides in his den. “Coming home late in the evening, I like to sit in my chair and read. That chair welcomes me home like an old friend. It’s comfy, the cushion is just right, the firmness is just right, but most importantly….that chair knows me.” If you see Black, don’t ask him about the chair. His house is under construction and the beloved chair has been put into storage. I asked him if he missed it, and the emotion was palpable. “More than I care to admit,” he replied.
21st Century Man and his 21st Century Chair
With the onset of 21st century technology, the chair can be more than just the centerpiece of a man’s home. Marketing Communications Consultant and Dune Acres resident Phil Dunne’s chair is the centerpiece of his daily home and work life. He actually conducts business from his corduroy cloth covered club chair. Jane Dunne spotted the chair while driving by the window of a LaSalle Street (in Chicago) furniture store. “The next day we were driving back to Indiana and she asked me to pull over,” Phil told me. “Out came the owner with ‘The Chair,’ covered in plastic, which he was barely able to fit it in the back of our Jeep. Now it has a side table for refreshments, a moveable stand for my laptop which plugs into the home network, and a holder for my wireless phone.”
While this high-tech accoutrement is mainly used for business, it does reside in the library of his Dune Acres home. “Our library is really the equivalent of a family room since it holds the TV,” he explained. Because of its presence in that room, the chair also has a more traditional Archie Bunker-esque role, especially during the weekends. “The chair is light enough so I can turn it into the room to join our company who are always made to watch and participate in the ‘McGlaughin Group’ on Saturday nights.”
While the arguments may now be about President Bush instead of President Nixon, very little has really changed since Archie Bunker’s chair was touching a chord in America’s homes in the early 70s. Like Fred Winston, Phil Dunne doesn’t forbid others from sitting in his chair, “but I have noticed that when we have people over for drinks no even thinks of sitting in it,” Dunne admits. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
21st Century Boy and His Chair
As for my father’s chair, it lives on fifteen years after his death. I took advantage of my proximity to my mother’s home (my brother lives in Detroit now) to claim the chair in the years after my dad passed away. It’s a little tattered, battered, and worn, but it’s now the symbolic centerpiece of my home; despite my wife’s insistence that the chair remain in the basement. Like my own father, I allow my sons to sit in the chair when I’m not in the room, but when I walk into the room, they scurry away. They know that it’s Dad chair. And now I’m Dad.
Unfortunately, they don’t stay away. Within a few minutes, they start climbing aboard. My six year old Johnny is usually the first one to climb on. His older brother Tommy, age 8, is always only a few minutes behind. When the youngest boy Sean sees his big brothers treating Dad and his chair like a jungle gym, he inevitably joins in.
Somewhere Archie Bunker is shaking his head at me. But unlike Archie, my chair isn’t under glass in a museum. It’s somewhere under three squirming boys and a crushed father, all fighting over the remote.
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