Ed Grisamore: 'Chairy' tree is Yoshinos' whimsical cousin

By my latest count, there are 304,129 cherry trees in Macon, but only one "chairy" tree.

It spreads its roots at the corner of Corbin and Parker avenues. The mailing address is 2395 Ingleside Ave. It resides in the back parking lot at Ingleside Village Pizza.

You can't miss it. It shimmers on sunny days and clinks and clanks when there is a breeze. Hanging from its boughs are nine aluminum seats, more than a dozen pizza peels, a discarded bicycle and a partridge in a chair tree.

It is a head-turning, show-stopping conversation piece behind one of Macon's most popular pizza parlors. The location is fitting, too, since it's only a half-mile down the Cherry Blossom Trail -- as the dough flies -- to the Fickling home, the birthplace of the Yoshinos that inspired the city's first Cherry Blossom Festival in 1982.

Tina Dickson opened the original IVP across the street in 1992. Seven years ago, she swapped corners for a larger space and was fascinated with the size, shape and color of a large tree along the north edge of the property.

Derrick Catlett, an arborist at Middle Georgia State College, told her it was a hackberry, in the same family as the sugarberry.

"I would look out my office window at that tree, and it was so beautiful," she said. "It was begging for some adornment. I thought about stringing some Christmas lights in it, but the extension cord and power source were going to be a problem."

As she began to replace some of the aluminum chairs in her restaurant, she sold the ones in good condition and stacked the rest in the back.

Then, last fall, the seeds were planted.

Why not string them up in the hackberry?

Before long, the idea had extra toppings on it. She had plenty of old pizza peels, those long-handled utensils used to turn the hot pies in the oven.

She figured the peels would make great mobiles, almost like giant wind chimes.

One of her employees had abandoned his bicycle and parked it behind the building.

"He left it there entirely too long," Tina said. "I told him if he didn't move it, I was going to stick it up in that tree."

She was a woman of her word.

Tina was convinced that she and her co-workers could decorate the tree in an afternoon. Anybody who could hand-toss a large pepperoni and mushroom could hang some old chairs, right?

"I thought we could climb it, but it wasn't that easy," she said.

She rented a bucket truck -- a cherry picker, if you will -- and purchased some wire from Karsten-Denson hardware store at the far end of the village.

Soon, she had a different type of outdoor seating, and the peels added an ornamental touch to the hackberry's new suit of shining armor. She added a couple of plastic hearts for Valentine's Day, and she can see herself ho-ho-hoisting a Santa up there at Christmas.

Loyal customers know about Tina's obsession with Elvis Presley, the king with whom she shares her Jan. 8 birthday. The decor of IVP is a mini-shrine to All Things Elvis.

So she may even be in the market for an aluminum Elvis, suitable for the great outdoors.

Now, folks drop by to tell her how much they enjoy the unique tree that's always in bloom. Rubberneckers can find plenty of entertainment when they stop at the traffic light.

Said Tina: "When the sun hits it and there's a little wind, it's beautiful."

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism and creative writing at Stratford Academy in Macon. He can be reached at edgrisamore@gmail.com.

This story was originally published March 19, 2016 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Ed Grisamore: 'Chairy' tree is Yoshinos' whimsical cousin ."