Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Summer makes me think of Fire Island, where I spent much of my childhood, and Stone Harbor, where my husband spent much of his.

Stone Harbor was also where my husband’s parents and many relatives retired. Uncle Al lived next door to my in-laws and made wooden whirligigs for family and friends: a seagull, for example, or a Mr. Sawyer who appeared to saw wood when the wind blew.

Recently I read the obit of a man who was widely known for his whirligigs, Vollis Simpson of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Martha Waggoner wrote about him for the Associated Press and the Globe.

“Where others saw trash, Vollis Simpson saw whimsical, wind-powered whirligigs, creations with hundreds of moving parts that turned and twirled.

“The whirligigs were made from recycled heating and air conditioning systems and reflector material Mr. Simpson patiently cut into thousands of tiny pieces that made the works shine when lights hit them in the dark. His work was featured in museums, backyards, dentist offices, and the 1996 Olympics.

‘‘ ‘I got caught with a lot of material, and I worked it out,’ he said in a 2010 interview. …

“Some of Mr. Simpson’s whirligigs stand as high as 50 feet … They can weigh as much 3 tons.

“He built the contraptions near his machine shop in Lucama. More than 30 of them were on display there until last year, when an effort to restore them began. That process is about halfway complete, with a few of the larger whirligigs still in the pasture, waiting to be moved.

“The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park is scheduled to open in November in Wilson, about 10 miles from his home.” Read more about him here.