Charlotte Rocker
Most of Australia’s regional airports are pretty good. I have flown into almost every one in each state. Some like Albury, Dubbo and Tamworth, Wagga, the Alice, Cairns, Coolangatta, Hamilton Island, Maroochydore, Townsville, Pt. Augusta, Burnie, Horsham, Mildura, Sale, Carnarvon, Esperance and Newcastle are as good as anywhere in the world. Newcastle is my favourite and it has been judged the best regional airport in Australia.
The regional hub airports in the USA are beyond anything we can imagine. With the US population, and their general affluence that allows so many to fly so frequently, you would expect it. Many of their regional airports are bigger than Sydney or Melbourne airports. Then there are huge airports like LAX, SFO, O’Hare, JFK, and Atlanta. At Atlanta, you need to take a train to various terminals! Every time we have arrived in Atlanta, we are on our connecting flight before our luggage is, and it has to be home delivered the next day.
But the regional hub I enjoy most is the one I fly into every time I go to the USA – Charlotte, South Carolina. We pick up a commuter aeroplane there to take us to Johnson City, Tennessee, where I teach at the Emmanuel School of Religion. Charlotte is the last word for Southern Hospitality to be found in an airport.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport is more than a major hub for US Airways, it is a destination with activities to keep air travelers entertained during layovers. While there is unique shopping, dining and other services, they provide a unique way of helping you pass the time during a layover in the Charlotte airport. Along all the windows of the airport are hundreds of white rocking chairs that have become synonymous with Charlotte Airport. These casual, country rocking chairs are found in living rooms, near the hearth, and always on a front porch. They are made of oak and feature carefully crafted back slats, curved armrests, and a carved base. They are highly ornamented with turned oak spindles and are much higher in the back than other rockers.
Typically found on porches throughout the South, the rocking chairs were introduced to the Charlotte airport in 1997 as part of a photography exhibit. Today, the white rocking chairs crafted from North Carolina oak are sprinkled throughout the Charlotte airport and invite weary air travelers to rock the time away and enjoy a bit of the Southern lifestyle. That means you can be served a beer while you are rocking, or a barbecue pork sandwich with the smoky, vinegar-based sauce has a slight tangy bite that people in the South enjoy. You can even have a manicure and a pedicure to melt away the stress of air travel. You can even buy one and take it with you for only $900!
The free rock in a large Charlotte white rocking chair gave me an idea to make one for our wide verandah. Then I saw them for sale at every Cracker Barrel Country Store, one of our favourite eating-places in Tennessee. The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, is a chain of 557 “Old Country Stores” each combining a retail store and a restaurant in 41 states across the United States. The “Old Country Store” is half of the building, and the other half is a Cracker Barrel restaurant that serves traditional Southern comfort food.
Breakfast is served all day, with separate menus for lunch and dinner. The front porch of a Cracker Barrel store has rows of white Charlotte rocking chairs for guests to enjoy before or after eating, and there is usually a fireplace and a checkers table within the dining area for an added country feel. The interior walls of the dining area are decorated with old farm implements, antiques such as family photographs, advertisements, and household items.
The country store carries mainly nostalgic merchandise, collectibles, old time toys, classic candies, scented candles, recordings of old radio programs, and of course, you can buy your own rocking chair for only $200, flat packed and ready to go! That only fed my desire for one. But at either $900 or $200 they were two expensive for me. But in a wood working shop I visited, I was able to buy a set of plans to make my own. To make my own has been a project I have had at the back of my mind for the past four years or so. Last January holidays I wanted to start, but those plans somehow were misplaced or thrown out when we moved house. I felt thwarted. But at a garage sale recently I saw a smaller one for sale, and this white rocker sits on our back porch now. It is not a Charlotte, but it will do.
Then coming home one night a few weeks ago, my car headlights picked up a pile of rubbish on the side of the road waiting for the council pick up. As I passed I was sure I saw sticking up in the air what looked like some spindles from the back of a rocking chair. I backed up and sure enough they were spindles, long thin and beautifully turned. That was going to be the most difficult part of making my own, as any wood worker will tell you that long thin spindles are very demanding to turn on a lathe. The American Shakers knew how but modern furniture makers know how difficult it is.
Among the rest of the rubbish I found two curved arms, and the bow rockers and their struts, the rungs, the cross rails and the legs. All the pieces were there unattached. I thought of taking them home just for kindling for the fire, when I saw the seat! It was hand carved and solid. But everything was in pieces. I realized that this rocking chair had been left out in the weather, and the rain had caused all the wood joints to come apart.
Later in my work shop I laid out all the parts. I took a shaving of wood to identify it, as the weather had removed all of the paint. It was oak! That meant it was unlikely to have been made in Australia and it certainly wasn’t one of those cheap pine rockers sold in our shops. Because it was oak it had not split in the rain. The long spindles indicated it was a very large rocker and then in the seat in the holes for the spindles, I discovered something else – little wedges of wood. That rocking chair had been made with invisible joints, not just glued together and held by screws or nails. This was a serious bit of fine furniture ruined by being left in the rain for some time.
I sanded all the pieces and started putting the pieces together like a one and a half metre high jig saw. I made some more little wedges and then started to clamp and glue the whole thing. I have always said a wood worker can never have too many clamps, and now I had every one I possessed plus strap clamps and even long floor board clamps all compressing it together. I let it all dry for a week, and then the big test! I test drove it and it rocked away without a hint of a complaint.
It was only when it was all together; I could see that this big rocker was a Charlotte rocker! God had provided it to me for free. No doubt about it. It was an oak Charlotte rocker, made in the USA. How did it come to Australia? Did some migrating family from the USA bring it over in a container of their furniture? And who would put such a fine piece of furniture out in the rain?
It has all been re-assembled, sanded and glued, two coats of undercoat and by the time you are reading this, the top coat of white enamel will have been applied, and it will be sitting on our back porch looking at the bush. But we will not be sitting on it. By the time you are reading this, I will have just landed at Charlotte airport. We are on our way to Emmanuel School of Religion once more to teach my class. All the way along the high windows of the Charlotte airport are these big white rocking chairs inviting passengers in transit to rest a while. I don’t need to. I have my own at home.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.