The Chairs That Were Built, For The Man Who Built The Golden Gate Bridge.
By Khadi Madama Quick-Seat Chair Wellness Coordinator
They’ve been here in my home since the early 1980’s when I bought them from a friend. She had bought them years before from a reputable antique dealer and then had them in storage and never used them. And, there they sat until she was having a clean out and I happened by for a cup of tea and saw them. “Oh, those old things? They were bought from the man who built the Golden Gate Bridge. They’re very old but in beautiful shape.” She explained. “Why don’t you take them off my hands?” She asked. And having just moved into my home, with its large dining room with no furniture, yet, I said “Sure, thanks.” So for all these years they have been right here including when I’ve written one of the Pinterest articles during the “Quick-Seat Chair Loves Bridges era. Isn’t it about time that I drew the parallel between the Golden Gate Bridge chairs and Quick-Seat Chairs, specifically the keen concept of construction? When I wrote about the Golden Gate Bridge in my fictional Pinterest “time traveling” concept, I wrote about the considerations that were taken to create a time-tested bridge of lasting beauty and utility but that, sadly, had no place to sit for the weary who found themselves in need of a place to sit while crossing her. Naturally, that’s when the Quick-Seat Chair Time Travel Team would arrive and set the requisite number of Quick-Seat Chairs into place saving the day for those weary foot travelers and making history once again.
Back to the “Golden Gate Bridge Chairs.” They are in use here in my dining room at least once per month and from the 80’s through the early 2000’s almost on a daily basis. Aside from not having any moving parts, they are now about 150 years old at least, as they were almost 100 when I got them. And, like the Quick-Seat Chairs, they hold up, as our tagline says. And as we already know, the Golden Gate Bridge certainly holds up. The important question that must be asked is ‘What makes the GG Bridge, Quick-Seat Chairs, and the chairs that were built for the man who built the GG Bridge have in common?
Great design, great construction, great quality standards and materials, and the last ingredient? The desire of the inventor/designer to make life safer, more comfortable and more beautiful for the rest of the world. I don’t think that anyone ever goes over a beautiful bridge and doesn’t take in the wonder and beauty of it. It’s no different when a family pulls out the beautiful sturdy and comfortable chairs to sit down in their dining room, especially to eat together and celebrate a wonderful occasion, and it is absolutely no different when a traveler along a wide and long corridor is set upon by the need to sit, brought on by a slight shortness of breath, a kink in that old knee injury, a spate of lower back ache, the ankle acting up or feeling a bit woozy, which comes out of nowhere. It happens that way, sometimes. It’s where the design and the foresight invested in it, in the invention of the Quick-Seat Chair, with it’s easy accessibility, generous seat size, sturdiness and stability, and also its hands-free self-close feature that ranks it right up there with the Golden Gate Bridge, not to mention my more than 150 year old dining room chairs. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” It’s obvious that in his famous poem, Endymion, poet John Keats knew what he was talking about.
Temporary Seating that closes itself