Iron Beds and Thanksgiving Memories

There are few memories as strong as those spent at Thanksgiving time with my parents. I had moved to the west coast back in 75′, from back in Ocean City Maryland. After finishing school at GW in Washington DC and starting my iron bed business in Georgetown , I decided to move to California and start a new chapter in my life. Iron beds had become very popular and the Los Angeles area was all over the iron bed popularity that was sweeping the decorating world.
I had gone into business with a woman who’d just opened a store in Brentwood and was in desperate need of inventory. She had an iron bed in front window when I wondered in that first day. Little did I know the next 9 1/2 years of my life would be spent in that store creating and fulfilling a an insatiable demand for antique iron beds.
Back then people were in to powder coating every iron bed coming down the pike. It wouldn’t be for years until a market started evolving that embraced antique faux’ finishes that made an antique iron bed look appropriately old for a particular color scheme and setting.

Because the store in Brentwood had started doing quite well, it required regular buying trips back to the east coast. Iron beds had been selling faster than any of us had anticipated. The stockpile and inventory of iron beds we had amassed quickly dissipated. So it was right around the first week in November that I had decided to combine one of my four a year buying trips with a surprise trip to see my parents…….. a continent away. I had been living in Santa Monica Canyon at the time and had a view of the Pacific Ocean. My parents on the other hand lived in Ocean City Maryland, right on the beach. So as I said……. a continent away. My departure day continued to get moved farther and farther back because of other business obligation I had to tend to. It became apparent if I were going to drive back east with the truck we used on my buying trips, it was going to have to be soon if I didn’t want to be spending Thanksgiving dinner in a truck stop somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma.

I’d continued to follow up on a number of iron beds back east that I’d gotten a line on. Trying to organize the stops I’d need to make and in the time frame was impossible at best. I had tentatively told all my pickers and contacts that I was coming back and to expect me around Thanksgiving.

Two days before Thanksgiving I’d finally gotten all my deliveries and iron bed installations done, that had been promised before the upcoming turkey day.

I crawled into my new Chevy Pick-up with just two days to get from the shores of the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic. Picking up iron beds that I’d bought and had been scattered across the country, would have to wait. I had a deadline to meet and only two days to make it…….coast to coast.

To Be Continued…………