Errors & Alma Maters: The Story of My Hand-painted Carolina on My Mind Rocking Chair

Can’t you see the sunshine?

Can’t you just feel the moonshine?

Maybe just like a friend of mine, it hit me from behind.

Yes I’m goin’ to Carolina in my mind.

Can’t you just see my former Carolina journalism professors failing me for not fact checking before I immortalized a misquoted James Taylor lyric in Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint? (At least it wasn’t a national memorial.)

Yep, I’m pretty sure this mistake would have gotten me a big fat F back in j-school.

OK, this was supposed to be a look-at-me, aren’t-I-so-clever post about how I transformed a broken down yard-sale rocking chair with milk paint and hand-made stencils.

Until I Googled James Taylor’s lyrics and realized that I did the thing I hate most on Pinterest. I made a sign (or in this case, a chair) with a glaring error on it. I didn’t misspell a word. And I didn’t confuse plural and possessive as so many people do. (Major pet peeve of mine!) But I did screw up the lyrics of a song that is the unofficial anthem of my alma mater. In paint.

It’s Carolina IN my mind. Not Carolina ON my mind.

I’m blaming it on all that Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine we chugged back in the day and all those Time-Out chicken & cheese biscuits we ate to nurse our hangovers. I bet Billy at Time-Out would have had something insulting to stay about my mistake. (Sorry for the trip down memory lane for those of you who aren’t fellow UNC grads; you had to be there, and if you were, you probably remember Billy fondly.)

I’ll be taking this chair to the upcoming Carolina Vintage (mini) Market to sell, and I guess I’ll be getting out my French Enamel Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint and my Old White Chalk Paint again to fix my little big mistake. Don’t you think I should? Won’t most North Carolina residents, and certainly most Carolina fans, spot the error immediately?

The thing is, I never intended for this rocking chair to have Carolina connotations. It wasn’t conceived as a piece exclusively for Tar Heel fans. But in that Carolina blue color, in this market, I’m sure that’s who will buy this.

This rocker has been sitting in my garage for months, a yard sale find.

Recently, I decided I wanted to give it one of my signature stenciled paint treatments, like I did with the child’s tricycle chair, my stars-and-stripes chair, the Coca-Cola chair and the Sinclair dinosaur stool.

Driving one day, I spotted a bumper sticker on the back of the car that said “Cackalacky,” which is slang for Carolina. Lightbulb moment! I knew then I wanted to paint a North Carolina-themed chair with the state silhouette on the seat and James Taylor’s lyric on the back.

My original plan was to add a red cardinal — the state bird of North Carolina — to the back of the chair. I also planned to paint the heart in the center of the state red.

But my husband and mother-in-law convinced me to keep the blue-and-white motif, saying that this way the chair would appeal to both UNC fans and North Carolina residents. Since I’ll be selling the chair in Raleigh, which is N.C. State territory, they both said the touches of red would be a sure turn-off for any diehard Tar Heels.

Of course, I’m not sure I should be taking decorating or decorative painting advice from a Wake Forest graduate (my husband, Bruce) or a woman who named her cats after the 2009 UNC men’s basketball team. (I am not making this up! Kitty-cat Tyler Hansbrough and Deon Thompson are still around, but feline Wayne Ellington died a few years ago and Danny Green recently ran off. We think pussycat LeBron James might have been involved in his disappearance. My inlaws have so many cats that Bruce and I are unsure of the fate of Ty Lawson. Really people, I am not making this up. Those are her cats’ names. In the past, she has also had cats named Michael and Jordan.)

Anyway, back to my chair. I really do love how it turned out. Except for the misquote.

Miss Mustard Seed’s French Enamel is a pretty good match to Carolina blue. I can just imagine this on someone’s porch. Maybe Roy Williams is in the market for a rocking chair.

I’m pretty sure the dean of the journalism school won’t be buying it.

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