It's your typcial Wednesday. I have been sent out on an assignment to Lula and left to my own devices following its completion.
Why not drive a few more miles to visit an oversized rocking chair in a field?
Actually, I was pretty sure that "field" is someone's yard, and I may or may not have waved at them, from their large chair, as they turned off Persimmon Tree onto Lula Road. Howdy, neighbor!
The chair itself is wooden, painted white and red-orange and has little stairs that help you up, begging you to sit on it. So I did. Took a couple of selfies. Enjoyed the sunshine I hadn't seen for nearly a week. Waved at a few more passing cars. Had a grand (hehe) ole time.
RoadsideAmerica's first entry is in 2008, but after I left the chair (and my existential crisis about feeling small in the universe), I was even more determined to figure out who put it there, why, and what it was doing there now. I asked around and got a name, asked around and got a number, and earlier this week, I was able to chat with Oliver Dwight, who built the chair for his pumpkin farm around 2006.
You heard that right - there are actually two giant rocking chairs. This explains a lot of the photos I found on the internet that had the same chair in two places at the same time. (I'd also like to mention that the second chair is on Dwight's private property, so please don't try and visit it. Stick to the roadside one, please!)
Well, actually, he's made three.
"Some vandals tore one of them up and I had to put another one over there. But everyone sees it as a landmark, a way to go and travel by. I know we'll have deliveries out of Atlanta and be giving them directions, and I'll say, 'You know where the rocking chair is?' and they do. It's become kind of landmark."
Dwight decided to close the pumpkin farm about four years ago, but kept the chairs, and the one on the farm is still there, just like the one on the corner is still there. He told me he's semi-retired now, and mostly works around the farm.
"It's real comical to watch and see the people come and have their pictures taken in it. I came by one day and it was raining and there were two men there, in suits, and one was standing up in the chair and the other was on his knees in the ground trying to set his camera up and set the timer on it. And he'd set the timer and he'd run to try and get on the chair and he'd miss it," Dwight chuckled. "And it'd go off, and he'd have to do it all over. When I left they were still trying. But I see tags from everwhere. There's been a lot of pictures taken in that chair."
Join me next week as I go off on another adventure here in North Georgia!
But until next time, stay curious.
