ATTACK NEIGHBOR

Beware, Summerfield, NC

I enjoy driving the back roads of rural America and the scenery never disappoints. And I’ve come across some beautiful landscapes and rather bizarre human creations over the years. One such serendipitous “road less traveled” took us to the property of a man who apparently spent his entire life creatively crafting weird creatures in metal all around his home place in rural western Kansas. When we stopped to walk around the artwork, we made the mistake of drifting into the open farm house. There on public display was the preserved corpse of the creator himself in a glassed viewing mausoleum, similar to the one housing Lenin in Russia.

Today’s Saturday morning drive with my obligatory Starbucks Grande Mocha revealed a rather bizarre tree of life (or death) in the middle of the small North Carolina hamlet of Summerfield. I’m not at all familiar with the relationship of the nearby neighbors, but the small plaque above the “No Trespassing” sign reads “Beware of Attack Neighbor”. The truncated tree limbs are wrapped in Tinsel and solar lights for the apparent night time viewing and irritation of anyone close by. The bizarre human trunks on the truncated tree limbs would seem to be mocking anybody that looks up at them and they are certainly “attention getters”.

There may be a “Hatfield and McCoy” feud going on in this sleepy little town or perhaps it’s just the work of another outlier of the human race that has found an outlet for imprinting his view of the world on all the fellow travelers who journey by!