I’ve had these lamps since the early 70s. I loved them when I bought them but they’re brass and in the past few years the brass had really gotten ugly. My attempts to ‘clean’ them only seemed to make the brass darker. In addition, the lampshade fabric was becoming very threadbare.

Last year we repainted the living room and my plan was to buy new lamps. We looked for months and couldn’t find anything we liked. It was hard to find tall lamps. My old lamps are fairly tall at 43 inches. I like the taller lamps because they look good in my living room with the vaulted ceilings. So I decided to keep the old lamps.

First I took the lamps to Lampcrafters in Daytona Beach where they did an excellent job refurbishing the old lamps and cleaning up the brass. Unfortunately they do not recover lampshades and didn’t know anyone in town that did. After some research, I decided I could do this myself. It even occurred to me that I might make a business of recovering lampshades. I cringe a little now at my naiveté.

Besides biting off more than I can chew, I tend to agonize over every detail of a project and this one was no exception. First was the fabric choice. I decided to go with Shantung silk the color of the walls (Sandstorm by Valspar) rather than gold to match the lamps. I thought it would be too much gold. I was wrong. In hindsight gold fabric would have been much better.

When I removed the original fabric and lining it quickly disintegrated so much I couldn’t use it for a pattern which required creating my own pattern. This was a major headache and required all kinds of adjustments after the fabric was cut. However, I bought extra yardage of fabric, which was a good thing, as I had several restarts on the first shade.

Another problem was that I found the bottom of the frame was wider than the top. The difference was very subtle. So subtle in fact, I’d never noticed it in all the years I’d owned the lamps. That required more cutting and refitting.

The lining was especially difficult and after struggling with a typical lining fabric, I eventually thought of using a slightly stretchy knit. An unconventional lining but it worked a lot better and looks just as good.

Last was the trim and it was the hardest to match to the fabric and another reason I wish I’d stuck to the gold color. There are lots of gold trims available but not much to match sandstorm. But finally I found one that matched close enough. By this time, I was just ready to get done with this project.

Here are the two lamps side by side. Can you tell which one is the new one and which one is the old one?

Show me, O LORD, my life’s end
       and the number of my days;
       let me know how fleeting is my life.  Psalm 39:4

The other day I happened upon an online longevity test where I was prompted to answer a few easy questions to get the number of my days.  Although probably not very accurate it was fun to play especially since it predicts that I’ll live to be 83.  Not bad!  That is if I don’t get hit by a truck or have some other unforeseen untimely end.   

Thoughts of illness and death have entered my thought more lately as I recently reached the milestone of 60 years.  It was an amazing achievement for me.  So far I’ve outlived my father, my mother, a brother and a sister.   My brother and sister were younger than me and died way too soon.  My mother was 59 when she died of cancer.   It just doesn’t seem like the longevity gene runs in our family.  There was one person that came to my mind though.  My mother’s older sister, Ruby, who lived to be 90 years old, outliving all 9 of her brothers and sisters, a child, a husband. 

So the question I’m thinking about is what was Aunt Ruby’s secret for living to age 90?

If there were a poster of what not to do to live a long life I think Aunt Ruby’s picture would be there.  She never exercised a day in her life.  For as long as I can remember she was overweight by at least 50 pounds.  She dipped snuff and ate the typical Southern cuisine of fried food, vegetables seasoned with fatback and lots of sweet tea and desserts.  As far as I know she never obsessed over her Omega 3s or her bad and good cholesterol or ever took a vitamin.   However, it was widely known that she did love a Snicker’s bar from time to time.

Ruby was married to Chick in the traditional way that marriages were back then.  She never worked or drove a car.  They had one child who died of Polio but she could never have more children due to some sort of ‘female problem’.   But she was surely blessed with lots of nieces and nephews who spent lots of their childhood at Aunt Ruby’s.  I was one of those nieces. 

Family gossip was that life was not easy for Ruby especially early in her marriage.  Chick drank and his drinking made him mean and he took a lot of his anger out on Ruby.  This went on for years until Ruby’s older brothers ganged up on Chick and beat the crap out of him.  The family gossip was that Chick never hurt Ruby again after that but I remember Chick being drunk and crazy when I was a child and he was very scary.   

Chick was raised in the mountains of NC and never learned to read.  He was a business man though owning several stockyards, land and country convenience stores.  Other colorful family lore accuses Chick of running moonshine and eventually getting caught.   Although he never went to prison he was forced by the circumstances of his parole to put all his holdings into Ruby’s name. 

Ruby went to a little country Methodist church but she was not religious.  I remember when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior I excitedly told her about it and her response shocked me.  She was certain I had become involved in some kind of cult.  Thinking about that always makes me laugh.  Her faith was long and enduring and may even be the reason for her long life.

Ruby was the one person everyone in the family went to when they had a problem.  She was always there when someone needed help or a place to live for a while.  Her house was like grand central station and with the help of her maid, Maggie, she cooked three meals each day with several shifts for latecomers.  She adopted all the stray animals that got dumped near her long driveway and although she never had much money, she would loan you a shirt if you needed one.

Maybe the secret to Ruby longevity was that she was practical and not taken to dramatic breakdowns like my mother.  She always seemed to have her feet firmly planted on the ground and content with whatever life brought her way.  She never aspired to greatness.  She was just Aunt Ruby and I always thought I was more like her than my own mother.

So Ruby outlived many and that was a blessing for her family.  The reasons why don’t appear to be obvious so I’m inclined to believe it was God’s blessing in her life. 

On careful reflection I may not live as long as my Aunt Ruby but I am grateful for my life and for the 60 years that God has blessed me with.  For this life is only the beginning.   As a Christian I have the promises in Christ of eternal life, not for anything I’ve done, but because of His work on the cross on my behalf.    In this life and the next, that is really all that matters.

Living to 100