Oddities on the Road

As I drive around the United States, I love to stop and snap photos of the unusual things that people come up with for their own entertainment.

I travel to Springfield, Missouri a great deal, since my family is from that southwest city, and on this trip I discovered that the giant fork sculpture had been moved from whatever restaurant it once advertised to the Chesterfield Village area west of Kansas Expressway.

The Chesterfield Village is a perfectly charming community of tree-lined streets, sidewalks and brick buildings, restaurants, at least one bank and one hotel, shops, parks, a movie theater, and upscale apartment complexes. Though it looks old, the entire community rose from a field within the last 10-15 years. My sister, a former city planner, says that the development has not been as successful as originally hoped, but it's holding its own in these hard times.

I finally had an excuse to spend some time there this weekend, and that's when I saw the fork! I was delighted, as I had lost track of it over the years.

I'm very pleased that the giant sculpture has been re-purposed and is now finding useful employment as art! It's reassuring that someone else thought it was interesting enough to save it from the trash heap!

From the hills of suburban Tillman, where there are no giant forks, this is your roving rural reporter Madeline, signing off on a cold, gray late winter day.