Goodbye, dear friend: ‘Ugly Green Couch’ remembered

That Ugly Green Couch was aptly named. It was about 10 feet of the most grotesque green. Basic pond scum is prettier, and I forego guacamole with my nachos, in deference to a vision that haunts to this day.

With four cushions and padded headrests, that couch was long and wide enough to accommodate even the tallest NBA center and the widest NFL linebacker, while sleeping.

To sit on it was an experience like none other. To recline was pure weightlessness, with much deep cushioning for ample support.

To lie on it, for a quick nap or for a night’s slumber, was to enter the gates of heaven. It was that comfy.

I don’t know where I obtained the Ugly Green Couch. It could have been at a garage sale for $10, or maybe a friend’s wife had said that enough is enough.

It was well-faded even when I first saw it. Likely, it was never pretty. Probably at one time, it was the color of an exit sign on the Pa. Turnpike, but the years had taken its luster. I imagine it was always unappealing.

It was a couch for the den or family room. Sofas in living rooms are seemingly designed to be uncomfortable. The ugly green couch was meant to have beer spilled on it, as a football game blasts not far away, but never tea or coffee following a church service.

Oh my, the things that couch was privy to! Thousands of conversations, hundreds of behinds and the stereo blasting the scratchiness and skipping of a whining Bob Dylan.

Note: For those of you who only know of CDs and MP3s, music was once played on vinyl disks called albums, which were prone to jumps and repeating the same three or four words, again and again, until someone jumped off the couch to kick the stereo. Anything that a person or two, or even four, could ever imagine, likely occurred on that couch.

I’d moved five or six times during a five-year period and the couch was my constant companion. One rented room was barely large enough for more than the Ugly Green Couch and a single bed, with a just a foot or two of separation.

Long before the Ugly Green Couch, and only once, did I live on a floor other than the very top of a complex or house. That one time was an educational experience, and I learned quickly that there was little in life more annoying than the sound of footsteps of a tenant above me.

Since that brief rental three decades ago, I’ve lived exclusively on the penthouse or at the top of the stairs.

For those five years, a core of six or seven friends helped me move from place to place five or six times. All were West Ches-

ter addresses, but as everyone who has moved knows, whether you have to travel even just a mile, everything must still be packed and loaded and then unloaded and unpacked.

As friends, we had helped each other move in the past, though my moves occurred on a more regular basis and I felt beholden.

So, you guessed it. Each time the winds shifted, and this vagabond changed addresses, those same friends were asked to lug that Ugly Green Couch down and up, and then up another set of stairways.

It was quite a complicated process, and took much skill to maneuver that four-cushion seater, which must have weighed more than 100 pounds. The couch, even when set on end, reached from floor to ceiling, and then some.

On the landings at each floor, between levels, that Ugly Green Couch had to be cranked around and almost stood on end at an angle. It was a virtual ballet dance to line it up and turn it prior to hauling it down a few steps at a time.

Several hallway walls at former residences were permanently scarred. Crushed fingers, knocked knees and scratched shins were the norm when transporting that couch on stairs. Several times, the Ugly Green Couch got loose for a couple of steps.

After being dropped, and seemingly with a life of its own, the couch would shift, give to the persistent tug of gravity and gain enough momentum to crush those unlucky enough to be downhill.

So 15 years ago, during a move, my friends started to whine and moan. They had no problem with carting up and transporting my stereo, bed, or forks, knives or spoons, but there were several rather vehement complaints lodged concerning moving that Ugly Green Couch.

“Bill, it’s a heavy one, you know,” said one longtime friend.

“You’ve got another sofa, you don’t need that one, do you?” said somebody else.

“It stinks (not true) and it’s so very ugly,” said a third.

My fourth buddy notified me that the couch was wobbly and down to two legs owing to accidents when it was moved and required several novels to prop it up and to make it level.

I looked at my dear friends and then took a glance at the couch. Let’s just say it wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, I told my friends that they could toss the couch.

That move went smoothly. We’d had lots of experience in the past moving the Ugly Green Couch, and this time, it was quickly and almost effortlessly placed next to the trash dumpster.

At the new joint, after carrying in my belongings, we ate pizza and drank beer while seated on the floor. We spoke fondly of our past green friend. Ironically, I haven’t moved since.

Then, a couple of hours later, it was back to the old place by myself to clean up a bit. The garbage man hadn’t been there yet, and the dumpster was still overflowing with what had, until just recently, been some of my personal belongings.

Shockingly, or maybe not, I realized that the Ugly Green Couch was gone.

Somebody had decided to adopt that couch and bring it into their home. They had made it their own. People might even be delightfully sitting on it right now as you read these words.

May its owners always cherish that Ugly Green Couch as I did.

And may they never live above the ground floor.