MUSINGS ABOUT OLD ROCKING CHAIRS

A SYMBOL...is part of what they are...
Symbols of lifetimes
Of hard work...

My granddad Pop, a farmer, had one
With a cane bottom---
I can still see it.
If anyone deserved the comfort

Of a rocker, he did.

Try hitching up two stubborn mules
With all the reins, collars, and gear...
Then walk mile-long rows, guiding
A deep plow and doing straight
Furrows all the way to the end of
the field and back, morning to night---

And milking the cows also
early and late!

All he wanted
At the end of the day
Was his chair to rock in
And a big glass of
Buttermilk and corn bread;
And the news on his old
Philco Radio, over there in the corner.

Rocking chairs...
Have you ever heard your mother
Rock a restless baby brother
Or sister, singing to them
"Bye yo, bye yo baby, bye yo,
Bye yo bye yo baby bye...
To the tune:

"Precious name, oh how sweet,
Hope of earth and Joy of heav'n,
Precious name, oh how sweet,
Hope of earth and Joy of heaven!"

Rocking chairs: symbols of respite
"From the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day."

We had a new one
The day we married.
We rocked our brand new youngest
In it that week JFK was shot.
We wore it out, raising him...
The fabric got bare.

We got another one in the seventies...
For ninety-five dollars
And paid it out eight dollars a month.
That tough rocker
Is still as good as new!

If a person in a rocker

Is talking, he is likely saying---

One of these things:

"I'm taking it easy."

"My back aches."

"It's been a hard day!"

"I'm out of service."

"It's nap time for me!"

"I muted my cell phone."

"Bring me the baby---he's crying."

"The doctor prescribed this."

"Please bring me a glass of iced tea."

"Where's my book?"

"Isn't life grand?"

 Rocking chairs went with granddads
Wearing blue-bill overalls
And sitting on wide, airy, white front porches
Across the South,
Where people, with no TV's or air conditioning
Sat and watched the kids playing, after supper
Out on the front lawns, sidewalks, and in the street,
While they rocked, talked, and relaxed.

Rocking chairs---
Out there on the porch...the men
Waiting for the women
To finish the dishes
And come out in their wet aprons
To rock a bit with them...and talk...

I have one in my attic;
It is priceless to me
With my feet propped up
On my Jack Holt shoe stool
 Which came home to me
Several years ago, from Bob.

Who ever "thought them up?"
He deserves a decoration
And maybe a statue of himself
In a rocker! Sitting somewhere..

Tell me, what's more American...
Than a rocking chair?!

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BY MIL
7/13/13