Curiosities

In Red Bay, Alabama...

Driving around Red Bay (an activity that doesn't take very long) reveals a few curiosities, a few of which I will catalog here.  First of all, there is the post office. There is only one in town, and we were struck by the little vignette constructed near the building's entrance. It consists of what appears to be a permanent display of a mail carrier's Jeep, obviously decommissioned, with a yellow rotating light on top. Inside the Jeep at the steering wheel is a dummy dressed as a mail carrier.  

On the door is a sign that reads: "Your Post Office on Wheels - Mel Mann."  

There are several other vignettes around town, which we understand have been undertaken by the citizens as part of the Red Bay Founders' Day celebration to be held next weekend.  Here's another in front of a local beauty salon:

One of the houses just outside of town is sporting some yard art that caught our eye.  This obviously is not one of the vignettes but the actual permanent landscaping:

Now I'm not trying to pass judgment here on tasteful decor, but it is just not every day that you see Jesus and Mary, the Statue of Liberty, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, a hobby horse, Hansel and Gretel, and a racehorse and jockey on display in the front yard. I would love to have met the homeowners; I just know they would be interesting people.

Some not-yet-retired friends back home who read this blog will chide me good-naturedly about this post, calling it evidence that my lengthy stay in this tiny place is slowly driving me round the bend.  But I don't pay any attention to them.  I can find amusement in simple things--ever more so, now that I'm retired.  Wasn't it Thoreau who admonished us to "simplify, simplify, simplify?"  Well, my observance of Americana is a simple pastime.  So there; you're just jealous!