Scan of the Week: Adirondack Chair
Brought to you by your local public library, where treasures from yesterday are lovingly preserved in climate controlled storage facilities.
Ah, the good life, symbolized by the most sublime of outdoor seating experiences: the Adirondack chair.
Yes, I have tried a zero-gravity recliner and it is pretty darn nice, but can you build it from scrap lumber and then rest a Diet Dr. Pepper on one arm and extra reading material on the other? Not to mention a potato chip bowl and two chili dogs? Well then.
Level arms parallel to the ground are the first requirement of an Adirondack chair, the wider the better. Do not accept chairs with sloping arms, even if they have inset drink holders. Your comfort and joy will be correspondingly diminished.
Note the slope of the seat and back, tilting you back like an infant in his mother's arms. You will relax and feel calm, your pulse and respiration will slow down, the tension will leave your muscles. You will begin humming "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever."
Yes, it is difficult and ungraceful to get up out of the chair, but who wants to get up? There is no swimming pool in this picture because we do not want to get up and go in the pool. We do not want to get up and answer the phone. We want to bask in the sun while someone brings us another drink. The glow of our being outshines every star.
This is what an Adirondack chair can do for you: instant relaxation, meditation, vacation, therapy, back-rub and headache cure all in one fully-supported, stress-free, zen-drenched, yoga-like pose. And after you build the first one, each additional chair takes just one-half hour! The chair plans and a brighter future are waiting for you right now, for free, in Mechanix Illustrated How-To-Do-It Encyclopedia Volume 5 of 16, 1961, R 643 M486.
Comments
I assume the Adirondack Chair got its name because someone who lived somewhere in that mountain range used some timber grown in those mountains and started selling them there?
You certainly invite the reader to lollygag in one of these chairs but I would much rather have a couple of nice cushions to help the relaxation process you so deliciously describe.