Cedar Key beach on a cool winter's day

Photo by Lois Anne.

Cedar Key Welcome Center

Twin Swings That Swing and Sing at Night

On a relatively cool day in the middle of the week, the beach area at Cedar Key is deserted. One might conclude that these twin swings get a bit lonely and bored sitting there baking in the sun with no one to get them moving.

There's a story told by Cedar Key natives that at night when all is dark and stormy and when there's no moon at all, the chairs party! They swing, boy do they swing. And when the swing, they sing. The natives say the singing is the voices of ghosts - those people who were driven off the island when settlers moved in to harvest the trees for pencils.

But others claim that's nonsense; it's just a legend that has no basis in fact and the singing swings are not really singing. What sounds like singing is noise from the wind blowing through the chains.

I think the native are right and the next time we stay overnight in Cedar Key I'm going to check it out if it's dark and stormy enough and there's no moon.

If I dare.