Of Spring Beach and birdseye dressers

This goes in the "it's a small world" file. Which I prefer to think of as "it's a great, big, wonderful world with delightful interconnections". (Of course, that's when it's not being a big, scary world with things that go wrong, but I try not to live there :^)

The history of the petite birdseye maple dresser shown above, with its charming oval mirror and serpentine drawers, can be traced to a summer cabin at Spring Beach on Vashon Island. When the Hansen family bought the beachfront cabin, many years ago, the little dresser was among several pieces left there by the previous owner. The stamp on the back shows it had been purchased from "House Furnishers, L. Schoenfeld & Sons", a Tacoma landmark from 1902 to 1996. Would you say, from the style, that it's from the 1920's?

When our consignor mentioned that this dresser had come from a cabin on Spring Beach, a spring of memories ...um... sprung up!

I am transported back to the Spring Beach of my childhood, spending summer vacation days with family friends who also owned a cabin there. No birdseye maple dressers, but comfortable, rustic furniture and a rock-lined, perpetually smoky fireplace. We kids enjoyed longs hikes out along the beach, scooting back before the incoming tide trapped us against the base of the towering clay bluffs. We climbed those same bluffs, hoping to catch a glimpse of the goats we knew were up there, but all we ever found was what they'd left on the ground among the Scotch broom and madrona trees. Out in the rowboat, I caught a rock cod so startlingly ugly as it's bug-eyed, orange self came into view out of the dark depths, that I must have let some slack on the line in my surprise, and it got away. I don't remember a lot of swimming; the water was always cold. We would sleep at night to the music of the spring-fed brook running by on its way to the Sound.