Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410100008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Midwestern cement goose seems to be infiltrating the sacred mountains and valleys of Southwest Virginia.
While the goose may be as prevalent in this state as transferred Ohioan (are there any Buckeyes left in Ohio?), the fake deer maintains a regional stronghold.
Decorative flags are inexplicably more popular than lawn art.
And, at least one Roanoker thinks we should adopt a cement or plastic bison to represent the valley, kind of a Big Lick/Explore thing guaranteed to promote tourism and plug our heritage as frontiersmen - and Orvis-outlet consumers.
"Yard art is poignant, especially for people who don't have animals," explains pop-culture guru Marshall Fishwick, a Virginia Tech professor. "It speaks to people's attachment to the earth and to the things they've grown up with such as pets and religious icons."
Vinton's Joyce Carter didn't delve that deeply into her fascination with Suzi Lee, her 60-pound cement goose. "I just think it's like playing with dolls," said Carter, 51, standing before a striking cement waterfowl dressed in a Lady Luck costume.
Carter dresses her goose like the Virginia Lottery fairy every Wednesday and Saturday - in hopes that the good goose vibes will lure in a Lotto jackpot. On off-jackpot days, Suzi selects other costumes from her wardrobe, which includes a William Byrd High School cheerleader outfit, a patriotic flag suit, a farmer girl get-up with braids and a purple-plaid golf ensemble.
"I don't have a daughter, so this is my daughter," she joked. "And she doesn't talk back."
Carter mail-orders her goose clothes from a woman in - where else? - Ohio, which is also the birthplace of Suzi Lee. A former neighbor, a Ohio transplant, had a goose, and Carter liked it so much the neighbor arranged to get her one, too.
Now her other neighbors are clamoring for the cluckers. "They walk [by] all the time, and they love to see which outfit she's wearing,'' Carter said. "They say if I win the lottery, they're definitely getting them a goose."
Michelle Andrews says her goose is the hit of her neighborhood, too. The Raleigh Court resident and native Ohioan got her goose after seeing one during a visit with her sick uncle in Ohio. "Three weeks later he died, so it's endearing to me. ... For Christmas last year, my [widowed] aunt sent me a Santa Claus suit for the goose, which was really a special gift."
Her boys, 5-year-old Jacob and 3-year-old Joshua, get a kick out of seeing what their mom has put on the goose; outfits range from a thrift-store fur stole, to an Affair in the Square tux, to a Thanksgiving Indian maiden.
When the neighbor kids went to Disney World, Andrews put Mickey Mouse ears on the goose. When her mailman got ready for a birthday vacation in Florida, she put sunglasses on the goose and made a sign that said, "Florida or Bust."
"A friend of mine told me I do it because I didn't have a Barbie when I was little," Andrews said. "Mainly it's just a practical joke. My 87-year-old neighbor lady says it makes her smile when she looks out the window; it's just a real fun thing to do."
Barbara Riggs swears she's not the "cutesy-country type," as she puts it. But when the New York native bought her Salem house on Front Avenue five years ago, she soon found herself collecting a cement goose, then two goslings, then a lion, then a pig.
"This is a cutesy-country house," she said. "And here I am buying all this stupid stuff I never thought I'd have."
Asked if she buys her fowl wardrobe, she explained that a friend in Ohio furnishes her with hand-me-down goose-wear, including a bikini, a goose-sized life preserver and a sailor hat. "I got a kid to buy clothes for. I'm not buying 'em for a duck."
The pig - located in the center of her front lawn, perched in a "watch pig" position - came into the family when she spotted it at King's Pottery & Ceramic Shop, where she'd taken her cracked goose for repairs.
"It was my husband's idea to get the pig. He's the pig; I'm more the duck type," she said, referring to the geese.
Nancy Griffith of Woolwine didn't have any lawn art to show us. "The only lawn ornamentation we have is biodegradable (dog poop) or recyclable (beer cans thrown from passing cars)," she said in a letter.
"In my area of Southwest Virginia, the lawn thing seems to be fake deer. ... As far as dressing these creatures, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe at Christmas time, a red bow around the neck or maybe some greenery. But if one of these things begin to sport a complete ensemble, I am moving."
Cleatus J. Hodges of Fincastle didn't have any yard-art examples, either. But he did call his niece in Maryland - which he claims is the No. 1 yard-art state. She reported that the latest lawn fashion is a sunbonnetted child cut out of plywood, which sits in a swing hanging from a tree. Another trendsetter is a statue of the Virgin Mary sitting atop a fluorescent sea-horse bird bath.
Readers may recall Hodges from a past reader participation column, in which we asked people for money-saving tips. (Hodges suggested saving toilet paper by using three sheets, folding the one in the middle twice.)
"Now I am emerging from my hole in Fincastle as a semi-expert on lawn ornaments," he wrote. "About five years ago [in Maryland] it was bathtubs made into Virgin Mary shrines, mama sheep with baby sheep covered with real wool and huge signs in front of houses saying 'S--- Happens!'
"I mentioned to my niece my letter on toilet paper and she paused for a moment and said, 'I think you need to get a hobby.'''
Linda Taylor of southwest Roanoke County showed off her array of lawn ornaments, which are more in the Martha Stewart high-end scale of yard art. She has folk-art fish swimming among topiary-cut bushes, birds of all sorts sculpted from metal rakes and mufflers, fancy sculptures, plus a hand-painted wooden monkey crawling up the side of her house.
"I just like to use my imagination in the yard," Taylor said. "We've got our serious art and our fun art, and this is just to make people laugh. It's to get a reaction."
Taylor said she was shocked the other day when she looked out her window and saw the neighboring farmer's real-live cows mingling with her spotted folk-art alligator. "They were HUGE," she said referring to the cows, not the alligator.
A Salem reader requesting anonymity sent us four snapshots of his - well, indescribable - yard art. Not knowing where it fit into the story, I asked our religion editor Cody Lowe for his opinion, which was: "It's sick, but I like it."
The "chainsaw garden" includes: "Petey the Chicken-bodied Boy," "St. Francis of Waco" and "Salome Carrying Her Own Head and a Bunch of Grapes."
"Please do not print my name or address," the Salem man wrote. "The cops have already been by here once."
Middle school drama and English teacher Becky Mushko was so inspired by our call for yard-art ideas, she adorned her plastic Holstein cow with a sequined choker. Neighbors in her Southwest Roanoke neighborhood probably weren't surprised, considering that Mushko has won many costuming awards - for her horse.
"I made a wedding dress for my horse that always wins awards at [horse] shows. It had flowers across the breast collar and a lace veil," Mushko said, sounding like a bridal announcement. "She carried a nosegay of fake lavender and blush pink flowers attached to her rump."
As for the ultimate Roanoke yard art, Mushko recommends organizing a committee to study the feasibility of designing and issuing a cement or plastic bison to valley residents. "This would reflect our historical heritage and help promote tourism and tie in with the Explore theme and all kinds of stuff that might make us the envy of other places that didn't think of it first," she said.
"We could get cottage industries with little old ladies sewing bison outfits, maybe even colleges turning out majors that specialize in the design of fake bison."
by CNB