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July 3, 2007

Seated in Memories

Students recall personal tales of history-laden lawn chairs

Story by: A.J. Eaton

The Shorthorn staff

The Fourth of July brings with it some familiar summer relics — fireworks, barbecue and swimming holes-. But perhaps the most important summer relic, which comforts the weary and seats the parade-goer, is the most overlooked.

Yes, the lawn chair. What is now an icon of the modern American summer, with its metal frame bound with plastic fiber, evolved from a simple design conceived out of necessity from a few pieces of spare wood.

The original lawn chair, the Adirondack chair, was designed in 1903 in the Adirondack Forest Preserve in New York. Thomas Lee looked for a comfortable chair while vacationing with his family and pieced together the chair out of spare wood from around his summer home. The Adirondack chair soon became a favorite of miners from the California and Alaskan gold rushes.

The lawn chair’s versatility has also made it a favorite among campers and outdoorsmen. This Independence Day, some university students recall fond summer memories and the lawn chairs they shared them with.

Business management senior Kelly Abbott has several lawn chairs at home and said she couldn’t get by without them. She remembered one summer night when a lawn chair played a key role in the evening’s events.

A few years ago, she was at her friend’s house hanging out and drinking. One of her friends fell asleep in a lawn chair on the porch, and they had a little fun with him.

“We tied his legs and arms to the chair and set off some fireworks underneath him,” she said. “When he tried to run, he flung himself forward and broke the chair in half. It was hilarious.”

Business sophomore Clay Salas is an avid fisherman. He recalled one of his first fishing trips with his uncle, Randy Salas.

Clay’s Uncle Randy sat in a lawn chair as he cast his lure out. He thought he had caught something big, so he started reeling in hard. He reeled in an old lawn chair.

“He wasn’t mad or anything about it,” Clay Salas said. “He took the chair out of the water, set it down next to his and sat in it. Then he got up and sat in the other one. He looked at both of them like he was buying a car, and then he threw his chair in the lake and kept the one he caught. He never said a word the whole time.”

While many remember their lawn chairs as simple pieces of metal and plastic that sit on the front porch, lawn chairs have also been the hot seat of invention.

Larry Walters took flight July 2, 1982, after tying 45 weather balloons to his aluminum-framed chair. Taking with him water, a two-way radio and a pellet gun to shoot out the balloons, Walters planned on flying 300 miles into the Mojave Desert from his take-off point in San Pedro, Calif.

Walters ended up higher than he planned, flying 16,000 feet above Long Beach. Attempting to land at the North Long Beach Country Club, Walters missed and became entangled in high-voltage powerlines. Fire and utility crews freed the lawn-chair pilot and arrested him for violating Federal Aviation Administration regulations.

The FAA levied Walters with a $4,000 fine, but he only had to pay $1,500.

James Spargo, computer science engineering senior, said he has no visions of flight for his lawn chair, which he refers to as “a rusty piece of junk that sits on the porch.” Despite that, he acknowledges that without it, he’d hardly be able to enjoy the things he loves most about summer.

“Lawn chairs are freakin’ awesome,” he said. “When you go to an outing where there’s nowhere to sit, you’re golden. Everyone else is sitting on the ground, and you’re like a god among worms. Gotta love the lawn chairs.”