Some folks have a message — and they take an unusual way to express it. There are acres and acres of fields in the South, just perfect for making statements.
Frank Gurley of Marks, Miss., for example, filled a huge field with a replica of a frontier fort, a sailing ship, a dinosaur, a Statue of Liberty, a chainsaw-carved Indian and Mexican, and a sharecropper’s cabin — just to entertain and educate his 20 grandkids and his neighbors.
Frank Gurley: “Just trying to do something good for folks around here.”
And on U.S. 64 in the south-central Tennessee town of Lawrenceburg, Morris Williams has hauled about 30 pieces of old farm equipment onto a field next to his country store.
Morris Williams, waving at farms about a half-mile away: “I got most of [the machines] on that ridge. I started doing this, oh, 20 years ago. I collect them for a time, then I don’t. It goes in spurts. I don’t think we should forget.”
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 1, 2004.
