These Vintage Owl Lamps May Bring Back Sweet Memories of Your Kentucky Grandparents

Recently, there was a really fun trend on Twitter.  Users were asked to "Name something your grandparents had in their house."  Today on our morning show, Angel and I decided to poll the crowd with that same question. Only, we made a slight change to it.  We asked folks to "Name something your grandparents had in their house that you have fond memories of."  For me, there could have been several answers.  But one really sticks out in my memory because it's now in my house.

Remember these?

I have always found these things just ghastly, but, after my granddad died (my grandmother died about a decade before him), I knew that I had to have one of these.  My grandparents had two different sets of them in their living room, which was also outfitted in bright orange and bright blue furniture no less.  But when I remember visiting my grandparents' house, those owl lamps definitely stick out for me.  They were a staple of my childhood.

I'll admit.  I have always been curious about where that "owl" trend came from.  I mean, who thought this was a good idea?

LOL. I love my lamp, but acknowledge and accept the fact that it's really quite hideous.

It's like someone drilled a hole in the head of Woodsy the Owl and shoved a light bulb into his brain.  Did these things ever make it into Architectural Digest?  I highly doubt it.

I decided to try to do a little research about the owl lamp craze and I stumbled across a great online reference.  According to VintageVirtue.net, "The 1970s was without question 'The Decade of the Owl.'

The owl soared into the '70s as a symbol of nature, wisdom, and honesty.  Soon the owl began to pop up as a design element on kitschy home decor . . . lamps, figurines, planters, wall hangings, piggy banks, mugs, kitchen canisters – owls were everywhere."

Well, they were definitely at my grandparents' house in Philpot.  And now, I have one in my house here in Owensboro and my cousin Shea has one at his house in South Carolina.  When we were prepping my granddad's house for sale after he died, Shea and I both knew we had to take those particular pieces of that house and our childhoods with us.

I suppose the owls, and all the memories of our grandparents built around them, instilled enough wisdom in us for that.

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