I LOVE ROCKING CHAIRS
by
Jean Butterworth
I love rocking chairs! When I am out with my friends and I see a rocking chair, they say, “there goes Jean to the rocker”. I have always done my best reading, sewing or just thinking sitting in a rocking chair. This might have started when I was young living in the country with no air conditioning. I would pull up my mother’s rocking chair in my bedroom to the open window in the evenings to read, hoping for a slight breeze. During those summer days as a teenager I remember reading many of Grace Livingston Hill’s books that I had gotten of the Tuscaloosa Library Bookmobile.
Old-fashioned porch swing
Next to rockers in my opinion is a good old-fashioned porch swing, anything moving. When I was very young, my granddaddy that lived in Tuscaloosa had a swing on his front porch. And many a late evening in the summertime when he came in from the chores that farmers do, that he would sit in his rocking chair on the porch and me in the porch swing and discuss the weather or the happening of the day. We would watch the lightening bugs flitter back and forth as we talked and rocked.
Metal glider
A medal porch glider comes in third to my preference to a rocking chair. Remember those squeaky sounds the glider made going back and forth? My mother in law had one on her porch when she lived in a cute little white house on 4th Court West near Five Points West in Birmingham. The glider was painted a light green. Nowadays I see in the newspaper ads wanting to buy gliders in good condition.
Sewing rocker
After I married and had our first child, we had a funny thing to happen. One night when baby daughter was exceptionally fussy, my husband was rocking her in a small antique sewing rocker trying to quiet her down for the night. All of a sudden heard a loud bang and rushed in to the baby’s room and there was daddy sitting on the floor with baby daughter held high in the air. The rocker was in a thousand pieces! No one was hurt. That rocker went to the rubbish pile.
Rock the babies
Churches now provide nurseries for babies and small children. Many times in church I hear the request for ladies to “rock the babies” while the moms and dads attend church services. At Children’s Hospital, trained volunteers come into the nurseries and rock babies for therapeutic reasons, giving that “Tender Loving Care” that babies require.
When my five grandchildren came along I relished those opportunities I had to rock the babies and even sometime to sings those old songs, “You Are My Sunshine” and “When Those Caissons Go Rolling Along”. Not that I could sing very good but they like it anyway.
Swing in the back yard
Later, when the grand children were older, my favorite pass time was to put the grandchild in the swing in the back yard and swing them high and low. Or we might go to the park or play ground and head out for the swing sets.
The other day I was at the Hoover Senior Center and walked out on the porch overlooking the Galleria and there were lots of rocking chairs! Yes, I did try them out
Now days, I have my favorite rocker in my den where I still rock and read or watch TV. “Rocking Alone in a Ole Rocking Chair,” as the song goes!
Chinaberries and Other Memories of Alabama by Jean Butterworth
Chinaberries and Other Memories of Alabama (Kindle Edition)
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