C&T Publications Eye on Fine Art Photography - July 2014 | Page 14

Rocking Chairs
Americana at Its
Finest
By Joe Walton

Rocking chairs have always been a part of Americana. Their look and feel can bring you back to a place in time when you thought
nothing mattered, when you could believe and dream of better things.
When I was younger, Granny Smith owned a log cabin out by Sand Bourbon Trail. We would trounce through the open fields for
days, gasping at the new sights and sounds of the open range. Granny would step out of her rear screen door, bringing us colorful
apples in paper baskets, glittering with her homemade touch. We used to love those days. Bright, warm sunlight fettered our desire
and our taste of the unknown, as we walked along sandy beaches and played out by the Golden Sand Lake Valley Pond. Throughout
all of this, however, there was one constant, one fleeting moment in our ambitious travels that brought us back home. That was
Granny's rocking chair.
She always had it. She displayed it as if she were a small town shopkeeper with a new shipment of dresses. Her log cabin was her
shop. Her porch was her display window, and we were the young ladies who trounced by, gasping goggle-eyed at her magnificent
wares. "Can we sit in it, Gramma?" we asked, ever so expectantly. "If f you're careful," she answered.
She knew we'd be careful, and we knew she was only pretending that her chair was some sort of golden chariot, but this
melodramatic dance of grandeur made the rocking so much greater. With every brilliant swoop, we galloped like horses on a beach,
chased by a horde of King Solomon's army. But King Solomon could never catch us. We were too fast.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" we screamed. "Faster! Faster!" Granny could hear our giggles and peeps of joy, and so she'd indulge our sounds
with plates of cakes and tubs of sugary drink that sat on nearby table ˈ]