WRITING TOPIC – ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

Giant Red Wing Boot, Bay Point Park, Red Wing, Minnesota,
August 2005, photo © 2005-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights
reserved.

We didn’t travel much when I was growing up. Maybe a weekend trip to the beach in Charleston or Savannah. Or taking a drive through the Great Smoky Mountains along winding roads of the Tennessee hills to visit my grandparents over Easter. But for the most part, we stayed close to home.

It wasn’t until my early twenties that I started to criss-cross the country by Ford Econoline van, vintage Karmann Ghia, yellow Mercury Capri, and powder blue VW Squareback. Those were the years I discovered my wanderlust and the uniquely American, Roadside Attraction. Though their heyday may have been the 1950’s and 60’s, if you keep your eyes peeled, Roadside Attractions still pepper America’s highways and byways.

In Minnesota, they might take the form of an 18 foot tall, 2 1/2 ton Paul Bunyan, and 5 ton Babe the Blue Ox. South Dakota has the Corn Palace (thanks to Bo’s comments for the great postcard link). And Texas has Cadillac Ranch creating by eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh, 3 who in 1973 invited a San Francisco artists’ collective called the Ant Farm to help him turn 10 used Cadillacs into a landscape work of art.

Are car and seed art not your cup of tea? Head East and check out the Giant Koontz Coffee Pot in Bedford, Pennsylvania (built by Bert Koontz in 1927). In 2003, rather than have the coffee pot meet an untimely demise, Bert’s great nephew Dick Koontz, and a group of Lincoln Highway supporters, relocated the Pot to the Bedford County Fairgrounds across the street. Or perhaps your direction is West; you might explore the haunted Garnet Ghost Town at the head of First Chance Creek, 6,000 feet up in the mountain forests east of Missoula, Montana.

Ping-pong back to the Midwest for a gaggle of giant boots dotting the Minnesota landscape near the southern river town of Red Wing (named after a distinguished Indian Chief named Hupahuduta, meaning a swan’s wing dyed in red). Red Wing shoes were the 1905 vision of Charles H. Beckman. The Red Wing No. 16 boot was issued to World War I soldiers; during the Great Depression, the factory workers burned scrap leather to stay warm.

For their 100th Anniversary, Red Wing spent $100,000 and 1 year building a supersized “638-D” replica of their classic work boot No. 877. The world’s largest shoe, it’s 16 feet tall, 20 feet long, and required 80 cowhides, 1,200 feet of rope and 300 pounds of adhesives. The shoelace is 104 feet long (here’s a shot of Norm Coleman next to the boot).

Do you have childhood memories of a favorite Roadside Attraction? Big Critters, 2-Story Outhouses, the Jolly Green Giant? Where was it located? What age were you when you visited there. Who was with you? Have you passed a giant Mauston Mouse and just had to stop and take a photograph?

Or maybe you seek out Roadside Attractions wherever you travel like the creator of one of the best sites I’ve found on the subject, Debra J. Seltzer’s Roadside Architecture. Debra travels around the country documenting disappearing Roadside Attractions (she’s heading to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in March).

Flip-Flop Travel Bug, Red Wing Palms, Bay Point Park, Red Wing, Minnesota, August 2005, photo © 2005-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Get out your pens and do a timed Writing Practice on Roadside Attractions. Using all the senses, write down as many details as you can. Choose a specific amount of time — 10, 15, 20 minutes — set a timer, and Go!

Stop when the buzzer, bell, or alarm goes off; read what you’ve just written out loud to yourself. You might be surprised at what you discover. And if all else fails, there’s always the Tom Robbins version of life on the road — Captain Kendrick’s Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve in Another Roadside Attraction.

Resources & Inspiration:

• Roadside Architecture — Debra J. Seltzer’s wonderful roadside site, created in 2000. No ads or pop-ups. Check out her Flickr sets from across America. She’s got passion for this subject!
• World’s Largest Roadside Attractions — Roadside Attractions from around the world. Based in Minnesota. No ads or pop-ups.
• Roadside Photos — Great photographs and postcards. Site of Doug Pappas with no advertising. Another person with passion for the road.
• Roadside America — Lots of ads but some good info there.
• Legends of America — Again, lots of ads. But good detail in the descriptions.

 

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, February 20th, 2009

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Goodbye Apache (aka Letting Go)

1958 Chevy Apache pick-up truck, December 2008, photo © 2008-2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

When I was 39 years old I let Jim know that for my 40th birthday I wanted an old truck. I wanted a truck that was about my same age. Something big, bulbous, and roomy. I wanted a truck that would remind me of my grandpa, who when he wasn’t riding a horse was bouncing up the dirt road in his old pick-up, on his way to the saloon.

I learned to drive in my sister’s VW bug when I was about 13, but I honed my skill in Dad’s 1971 Chevy pick-up when I was 16. Mom and Dad went on a long trip to Lake Powell that summer, and never suspecting that I’d attempt to drive a stick shift that didn’t even use first gear (except to pull a camper up a hill), they left the key behind. My friends and I went off-road, down ditch banks and in the rolling sand dunes of Albuquerque’s west mesa, in that pick-up. We got it stuck but were able to get a tow out of the hole I’d plowed into.

And so the one thing that called to me as my 40th year approached was a good ol’ truck. Jim eventually found one, although I believe it was not until after I’d turned 41. The find was worth the wait.

It had belonged to an old farmer from around these parts named Mr. Tenorio. Everyone knew Mr. Tenorio, and everyone knew his 1958 Chevy Apache pick-up with its original forest green paint.

For a couple of years I was in old-truck heaven. Manual steering, unwieldy stick shift, doors that only closed after slamming them with all your might several times. This baby required muscle. I remember once taking my friend Anne out for a spin. We rounded a corner and her door flew open. The truck didn’t have seat belts.

Jim and I used the pick-up two seasons in a row for selling apples, chile, and other produce at the local Growers Market. Our booth was one of the most festive; someone who was making a promotional video for our little village asked if she could film us, and I know the appeal was that 1958 Chevy Apache and the red and yellow apples and green chile all laid out in produce baskets in the truck’s bed.

Last week we sold dear Mr. Tenorio’s truck. For the past three or four years it has sat unused in our driveway, its green body rusting away bit by bit each day. I might have liked to hang on to it forever, but Jim and I are letting go of all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years that we no longer truly need or want.

We sold the Apache to a young Chicano from a town south of here. I didn’t meet him, nor did I watch the truck pull out of the driveway. I was certain this was the right thing to do—we had no plans to fix up the truck to its former glory, and Jim got the feel that this guy did—yet…. I didn’t want to know exactly, down to the last tattoo, what the new owner looked like. And I didn’t want to have to say anything to him or to the Apache.

I said my goodbyes later. I noticed the pile of dead cottonwood leaves that had accumulated since fall between the truck and the juniper bushes. The driveway had a lot more room. The house seemed empty. Funny how something outside the house could make the whole thing look slightly vacant. Mr. Tenorio was gone.

-Related to post WRITING TOPIC – MEMORIES OF CARS

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WRITING TOPIC – MEMORIES OF CARS

Granddaddy & His Cadillac, Augusta, Georgia, February 11th, 1956, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Do you have memories of the “family” car? Riding backwards with your brothers and sisters in the cargo seat of a 1967 Chevy wagon? The smell of the dirt-bottomed garage where your great, great uncle stored his vintage 1930’s black Pontiac? A Sunday ride in your dad’s Oldsmobile convertible? Taking a cross-country vacation in a flat nose 1962 Ford Econoline van?

October is a milestone month for the production of cars. After the internal combustion engine was invented, cars began to be mass produced in the 1920’s. Every American family wanted to own a car. October is the anniversary of Henry’s Ford’s first production “Model T.”

According to Old Car and Truck Pictures:

The first production Model T Ford was assembled at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit on October 1, 1908. For the next 19 years, Ford would build 15,000,000 cars and trucks with the Model “T” engine. The only other car to exceed that number was the Volkswagen Beetle. Considering the years when Henry did it, 1908 to 1927, it is surely a record that will never be beaten. Henry Ford had succeeded in his dream of building a car for the masses.

In research through shoeboxes of old photographs, I discovered that many images were of family members proudly standing next to their cars. Remember the jingle, “See the USA in your Chevrolet…? ” One of my fathers was a Chevy man; he has always driven Chevrolets and still owns a Chevy truck to this day. Another drove Oldsmobiles and I remember his red Olds convertible with the white rag top. What kind of car did your father own?

Family Scrapbook — Fathers, Sons, Daughters, & Cars:

Mom & Uncle Jack, Augusta, Georgia, circa late 1930s, early 1940s, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Granddaddy In Pinstripes, along with Mom and Uncle Jack, Augusta, Georgia, circa early 1940’s, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

My grandfather was a GM man. He owned a Cadillac. And the day his son Jack graduated from high school, he was presented with a 1954 Pontiac Star Chief (which oddly I remember looking more like this 1953 Chieftain Catalina). I remember the car well; Uncle Jack died unexpectedly a few months before I was born and my mother inherited the Pontiac. It would figure prominently in my early childhood memories. I loved the way that Pontiac looked and smelled. And through my child-eyes, the orange hood ornament of Chief Pontiac, and the ornate grille and tail chrome, added a certain respectability and regalness to the way the car moved down the road.

If you think about it, cars were the Internet of their day, changing the way people communicated, socialized, visited with family, and, eventually, after the Interstate infrastructure was built by Eisenhower in the 1950’s, the way we moved around the country, sometimes never to return home. Cars changed America. (And we have our wildly fluctuating gas prices and chronic dependence on fossil fuels to prove it.)

Uncle Jack & His Pontiac, Augusta, Georgia, circa 1954,
photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

What memories do you have of the “family” car? Did you live on a farm where trucks were more important than cars? Was your father a man who would only buy American-made cars? Or did he believe VW’s and Toyota’s were better made and would last longer. What kind of cars did your mother own? How did the cars your family owned influence those you would buy as an adult?

There are two steps to this week’s Writing Practice:

(1) Make a list of all the cars you have owned; make another list of the cars your family owned when you were growing up. Be as specific as possible about year, make, and model. If you need help, dig through old family photographs and chances are you’ll bump into your family history of automobiles.

(2) Do a 15 minute Writing Practice on one of these car-related Topics:

• How many cars have you owned? Make a list. After making your list, choose one and do a 15 minute Writing Practice about a memory connected to that car. Think about the way it smelled, the color, the way you felt when you drove it. Was it a stick, 5-speed, 4-on-the-floor, automatic, or 3-speed on the column? Write everything you know about that car. Start the Practice with — “The first time I drove my 19xx  _________…”

 

• What was the first car you owned? Was it new or used? How old were you when you learned to drive? High school, junior high? Who taught you to drive? Do a Writing Practice on “My first car ________.” Be as detailed as possible. Include all the senses.

 

• Write a memory of one of your family cars. I have memories of traveling across the Savannah River to visit with my Grandmother Elise and her singing to me along the way. Write about a childhood memory associated with a car your family owned. Write down the make, model, year of the car. Then beside it, write “I Remember______” and see what comes out. You might be surprised how far 4 wheels and a full tank of gas can take you in your writing.

 

Granddaddy & Uncle Bill, Augusta, Georgia, circa early 1950’s,
photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, October 12th, 2008

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