July 29, 1976, at the Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ

 

We had only just started living together. Everything was new.

When Jim and I met I had blurry musical tastes and interests. The Beatles and Stones had pretty much washed away by then and I hadn't really taken up any new groups. I listened to a few FM radio shows that turned me on to some esoteric artists. I'd buy an album for one song and be disappointed in the rest. Then Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band got my full attention that year. 

Jimmy was a rabid music fan and concert-goer and always good for a weekend's worth of partying and music. Most of it hard to country rock, but he was indiscriminate about his rock and roll and delighted in sharing it all with me. 

He didn't tell me who we were going to see. Roosevelt Stadium across the river in New Jersey might as well have been Mars but I was game for the surprise. A few exits before we passed a guy holding a sign that said EAGLES TICKETS. Now I was excited because Jim had been playing their records and I really liked the sound.

The Rocker

 

Not the guy, my rocker, but the chair.

He'd just finished putting stucco around the fireplace enclosure and was admiring a job well done. I know this was not long before the wedding because we took a few "formal" photos standing in front of it.

Somehow, memory was telling me that he bought me the rocking chair for our first anniversary. Nope. He didn't even wait that long. 

At some point, I must have said "I like rocking chairs". It was weird. I asked myself "What kind of guy buys his woman a rocking chair?" Took me a few years to find out that all I had to do was think out loud and my silly wishes came true.

Then the chair started trying to kill me just by sitting there minding its business.  

A week did not go by that I did not whack one or the other ankle bones on the front rockers. It's not like the place was crammed with furniture. I couldn't seem to get my foot radar tuned to this chair.

Four years later I was sleeping in it half the time because Colin didn't get the hang of sleeping through the night until he was one. 

Then it became a repository for clean laundry until I cleared it off for Jake who was a more considerate child when it came to sleeping, bless him. He hauled himself upright on the side rungs, grabbed onto our old cat Moses and off they went walking sideways down the hallway.

So lots of use, a house heated by a wood stove and the rocker began to fall apart. I know we glued it back together more than once. The memory of bruised ankles outweighs the memory of what eventually became of it, sad to say.