Father's furniture

<- me (left) and my father (right), Winter 1946-1947. The planes on my clothing were inspired by the food dropping flights during the Winter two years earlier (this also in a response to Caroline's comments).

During thirteen years we had a table and four chairs made by my father-in-law who used tob e a carpenter and built many beautiful pieces of furniture in his life. When we got it, I adjusted it a little bit because the table top was worn. It was beautiful Mahoney wood but covered with a thick layer of dark lack, which I removed and replaced by wax. OK thus far. Then one day, two months ago, my ex-wife called me and asked if I was interested in the old desk that I got from my father, who repaired and renewed old furniture, but not as a profession but as a hobby. At our divorce I had left it with her, but now she would move to a smaller house and couldn’t place it. After I cleaned and waxed the desk again (I’m now typing this message behind it) and put it in our living room, it was a terrible contrast with the table and four chairs from my father-in-law. So we went looking for a new table, also in oak, which would give room for 8 people when we would have guests; up to then, we always had to “put up” by getting an extra table from upstairs. After a few weeks looking for it on www.marktplaats.nl we found what we were looking for, at a quarter of the price for this kind of tables. Now it’s in our room. We already had some other furniture as well from this site, because I prefer used furniture above new (I feel like a hunter sometimes). And what happened when we recently paid a New Year visit to my parents-in-law? My father-in-law just gave us the price of the new table, not knowing that he was paying for it! You have to know, that he is a rich man nowadays. In the fifties he built his own house in a small village near Rotterdam. A couple of years ago, he found it too big for only he and his wife, and sold it to a far richer man at the current market price, which was more than twenty times the price he had built it for. He also feels that he is growing old and every New Year he gives a small amount of money to his children. Of course we didn’t really need the money for the table, but refusing it would be a serious offence against his intentions. The new table also promises some nice working hours for me because, you gess it already, it is covered with a thick layer of boat lack asking to be removed and replaced with something more decent for such a piece of craftsmanship. The table symbolizes the bond my late father has with him in my eyes. Even when you are in your sixties, your father or father-in-law keeps following you with little household helps: a nice desk, a table, etc., just as you do with your children. Goethe once wrote (in his Westöstliche Divan):

Do good things because you love goodness,
Transfer it to your children,
In case you don’t succeed,
It will benefit your grandchildren.

But also, in the same chapter:

Do good things because you love goodness,
Whatever you do, doesn’t remain yours,
Even when you keep it in your possession,
Your children will not keep it.

Sounds like a riddle: how to combine the two advices, which both seem to be equally true? This is what I love so much in Goethe.