I first became acquainted with the green rocker on my grandmother’s front porch at 33 Ash Street when I was about 3. I would stand there hoping someone would lift me up onto the chair, which they often did. I would rock as hard as I could. I was “king of the world.”

I would visit my grandmother often, as we lived only two houses down the street. I loved the warm days when we could sit in the rockers and visit.

After my hitch in the Navy, I got married. My grandmother sold her house, and I came into possession of one of the four porch rockers. The rocker then resided on our porch on Pleasant Street.

We then moved to Hayden Rowe, and the chair came with us. Shortly after, we became pregnant. Not knowing the sex of our child, I painted the chair white and the knobs pink on one side and light blue on the other. After our daughter, Vickie, was born, the rocker went into heavy use in the nursery.

We moved to our first house on Maple Street Extension along with the rocker. The rocker came into full use two years later when our son, Steve, was born.

The rocker went into storage for a while, until we bought a cottage in Dennisport, on Cape Cod. The front door on the cottage was a mauve color, so the chair became mauve and sat on the front porch along with another chair.

Move ahead seven years, and we bought a home in Owls Head, Maine, and along came the chair. We painted it dark blue, and it resided in our kitchen there.

After about 20 years, we came to our present home in Hopkinton. I have my own kitchen in the basement to do my canning. The rocker resides there, still painted blue, and I am not sitting in it, timing a batch of applesauce in my canner, about 80 years after I first met the porch rocker.