WHEN YOU NEED TO ROCK
Rocking chairs have always been special to me—from my childhood’s little red rocker to several made when my father was at the Cleveland Chair Company to an antique rocker we bought to rock Heather and later Patrick. One of my favorite “wise sayings” from my grandchildren came from little Eli. I was telling them the Bible story of Mary and Martha. When he heard Martha’s stress over preparing the meal without help from her sister, he said, “I think Martha just needed to sit down and rock awhile.”
The photo above shows Eli, Charlotte and Sam in little red rockers at the charming Red Rocker Inn in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The rambling Victorian house is a Bed and Breakfast Inn and on weekends, the dining room opens to the public for a delicious brunch. When Patrick and family lived in nearby Swannanoa, we enjoyed several Saturday morning feasts there. All the Southern favorites were available at the buffet—meats, eggs, grits, potatoes, gravy, biscuits, and fruit.
I stayed there on one visit when Julia’s parents were also in town. The bed was luxurious with all its pillows and quilts and I had a clawfoot bathtub that was up on a platform! When I went down for breakfast before driving home that Monday, a group of guests from the Midwest invited me to eat at their table. These three couples met there for a week each fall and soon we were laughing and talking like I’d been their friend for years. I felt like I’d sat down to rock awhile—a real respite.
This photo shows the same threesome another time we visited North Carolina. This time they were enjoying really big rocking chairs on the porch of an old building owned by Montreat College. They needed a boost up to get into these chairs but nothing could suppress these cousins’ delight at being together and just rocking on the porch awhile. Eli was right—Martha would probably have relaxed a bit if she had sat down to rock a few minutes.
Seeing a story 