I’ve always enjoyed a good sit-and-sway in a porch swing or the rhythmic rock-and-creak of an old rocking chair. Each have their own rhythm, their own unique sound, and eventually, if you allow, you might find yourself a part of that melody.

Over the years I’ve made a few chairs for our cabin, chairs whose sole purpose is to allow their occupants endless hours of comfortable fireplace gazing while tipping back a hot cup of coffee or an indulgence of something of a bit higher octane. The cabin is a long way from anything or anyone claiming to be civilized so howling at the moon is tolerated and encouraged.

I thought about making a rocking chair, or possibly converting one of the chairs I made into one, but it seems I must have missed rocking chair conversion day in shop class, because the task proved to be beyond my woodworking skills. Thankfully wood tends to burn quite well, so all evidence of flawed design and shoddy craftsmanship can be reduced to a bucket of ash before it, and its creator, have to endure the pointing and laughing of the before mentioned “moon howlers”.

Thoughts of, “I can build that” soon gave way to, “I can buy that”, and so began my search for the perfect rocking chair for our cabin. I’m a bit peculiar about everything that goes into our cabin, and I suppose that’s bound to happen when one starts planning and picturing it all at the age of 11 after watching the first of many episodes of “Grizzly Adams”. Most everything in our cabin has some sort of story behind it, so if you’re ever in the mood for a story, or you feel the need to howl at the moon, swing by and sit a spell.

During my rocking chair search I found a few potential rockers here and there, but none of them sat or creaked quite right, and more importantly, their story was unknown, so I passed them up in hopes of finding “the one” (or “the one” finding me).

I was out for a bike ride one Saturday morning last month, slowly pedaling up a hill, when I saw a garage sale on the horizon. Not just any garage sale, a garage sale with a rocking chair sitting in the driveway. With more excitement and anticipation then one should have over a garage sale rocking chair, I rolled up, lay my bicycle in their front yard, and gave it a sit.

It sat well, it creaked nicely. The owner came out of the garage, looked at me a bit oddly, (might have been the form-fitting lycra biking outfit, funny silver biking shoes, and helmet) and said, “That’s a good rocking chair, it was in my classroom for over 25 years.”

As I rocked, we visited, and I learned that she was a recently retired elementary school teacher. She said, “A lot of kids sat around that chair over the years as I read to them during our story time. Sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, you never know how a story is going to affect a kid.” I said, “I’ll take it” and assured her that it was going to a good place, a place where most everything had a story, and that many more stories were going to be told around it.

I confessed that some of those stories may not be fit for an elementary kid, but she didn’t seem to mind. I suppose a story is a story, and this is the first story I’ve written from my new rocking chair, while sitting in front of the fire at our cabin. I hope you like it, and I hope a story finds you now and again.

Rock on.