Monday, March 14, 2005
Monty S. Leitch: 'Yes' to yard decor, 'no' to roadside crosses
From the RoundTable blog
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In the "love it" category, put snowmen, Christmas lights, concrete and metal sculptures and other unexpected oddities. Under "hate it" are roadside crosses of all types, but most particularly those that mark the sites of traffic fatalities. After the big snow at the end of last month, more than the usual number of snowmen appeared around the New River Valley. Some were truly huge: 8 or 9 feet tall, with top hats, colorful mittens, stick arms and scarves. One delightful fellow near Radford had been topped off with an orange traffic cone.
The best of the bunch, however, was the giant sphinx crouching in front of my next-door neighbor's house. A magnificent creation, complete in every detail. The wind that blew away most of her face only made her look more authentic.
I also like concrete sculptures intended for use in the garden - gnomes, frogs, rabbits, turtles, thinly draped goddesses carrying urns. I've decorated both my yard and the path in my woods with such sculptures: cherubs peek out of the stumps of rotten trees, entwined lovers snuggle under a bench, a stately flamingo stands guard amongst the iris.
I do love flamingoes. If I'd had a truck when I saw it, I'd have bought a 10-foot-tall pink flamingo constructed of tractor parts, because I love sculptures made from old garden implements, as well. I have a - well, a something made from rakes, trowels and rebar standing by the back door.
And, as you would expect of a person who likes flamingoes, I truly delight in more eccentric yard art. A house I used to drive by regularly had a mounted swordfish in the front yard. Who would do that, and why? I love speculating. Then, just yesterday, I noticed a full-size dairy cow standing on a front porch in Radford. More and more to think about!
As for Christmas decorations, the more the merrier, if you ask me. They're all equally tacky. So why not put up a bunch?
But those crosses and wreaths placed along roads as memorials to victims of traffic fatalities: Those I find macabre and dangerously distracting. Those I really hate.
And I wonder at the motivation behind their placement. Do the victims' survivors wish to warn others of sharp curves or dangerous intersections? How, then, to explain the memorials left alongside straight stretches of roads? Alongside the interstate? And is it really a good idea, at such dangerous spots, to cause other drivers to take their eyes off the road?
Do the survivors wish to remind themselves of the victims they've lost? I cannot imagine this being necessary under any circumstances. No one ever forgets a lost loved one. Nor does anyone forget the manner in which the loved one was lost.
Do survivors imagine that these crosses will somehow turn a stranger's heart to Christ? This would be the most disturbing motivation of all. "Here God snatched away my loved one, so give over your life to God!" A distortion of God in too many directions to outline.
Of course, my heart goes out to those who've lost loved ones in traffic accidents. Of course, I understand that we cannot, any of us, afford to look away from the reality of highway fatalities; nor can any of us afford to look away from the devastation of grief.
But isn't there a better way? A set of roadside crosses near my home has been made from PVC piping. Is this appropriate?
Maybe it's just me. But I'd want to pay my loved one more respect.
