Treasure is found

My wife was recycling catalogs when she came across it.

"Take a look at this," she said.

While she's religious about recycling and we receive far too many catalogs, she's also afraid of missing out on a bargain and insists on taking the time to see if there's anything of interest before tossing something into the bin.

In this case, the catalog was from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That's something of a mystery in itself, since we've never bought anything from the museum and the last time we were there was probably about 1972.

But when asked to "take a look," I did as I was told. I took a look.

There on the catalog page was a chair. Appropriately enough, it was a very modern looking chair. One that was low to the ground, with a canvas seat and a bent metal frame. It looked like the sort of thing you might find in an artsy apartment in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. And it came with a matching ottoman.

"Recognize it?" she said.

And I did.

The copy in the catalog said that the chair was designed by Takeshi Nii, a modernist Japanese designer. It also said that the chair's design was important enough that the chair is in the museum's permanent collection.

It also said that the chair was expensive: About $600 for the chair and another $180 for the ottoman.

But I knew this chair.

"That's our chair," I said, suddenly wondering where the heck it was and what had become of it.

What I clearly remembered was the agony of buying it.

We had been visiting my wife's family in central Illinois and for some reason had ended up at a gallery in Springfield that her parents liked. We weren't in a shopping mood. Money was tight. But the chair hit me like a 2x4 to the forehead. It truly had that much impact.

Connie felt the same way. But, as I said, we weren't shopping.

As I recall, we were still living in our first apartment in Portland. Some days, we were trying to figure out how to buy a house; some days , we were wondering if this is where we wanted to put down roots and raise a family.

In other words, we were all about practicality. And the chair was the opposite of practicality: It was a work of art. It was seductive. It was cool. It was incredibly comfortable.

It was also $125, ottoman included. So we fretted.

In my memory, it seemed we agonized about the purchase for hours. In reality, it could not have taken that long. But it was - as such things are for a young couple - painful.

In the end, we said yes to it. And we did not regret the decision.

For years, the chair gave us faithful service. It needed some repairs at one point, and it didn't fit with the décor of some of our rooms later on. But it was in good enough shape that one of the twins used it in a dorm room when she was a student.

And now, here it was - or its replica - in a fancy catalog with a very fancy price tag.

"Too bad we don't still have it," I said.

"Sure we do," said my wife.

She had reupholstered the ottoman, but I was convinced I had hauled the chair to the curb years ago and suspected the ottoman went with it.

Finally, on a weekend afternoon, I went looking.

Sure enough, I quickly found the ottoman. It's kind of like an overgrown camping stool.

The chair was another story, and it required some excavation. Finally, under some dust and debris in the attic of the garage, I found it.

Today, thanks to some repairs and upholstery magic by Rex Carpenter, the chair and ottoman look as good as new. The repairs cost about the same as the set did when it was new, but they're far below the current market price for museum pieces.

Before long, it will be headed to Bloomington to our daughter Sally. It will look great in her apartment.

And, besides, there's a little problem with that sexy, stylish, hip, modern chair these days: It's so low to the ground that I have trouble getting in and out of it.

Maybe I'm the museum piece.[[In-content Ad]]