Quirk of the Week: A street well met
“Get your own Quirk, easy installments!”
If this were a cheesy commercial it wouldn’t come with “Operators standing by — order right now!” (Remember the old “late-night-TV” dig? Now TV ads are overlong and annoying 24-7!)
No, Quirk’s never had time limits, conditions, or fine print. Never will. This is free: keep the credit card in your pocket.
All this crossed my mind while considering the delights along one of McMinnville’s three main east-west arterials, a street where locals will tell you drivers go too fast.
And so, we say, “Hail, Fellows Street, well met …”
Yes, you, too, can see Quirk, just by slowing down — be it on Fellows or any other arterial. For “thorough fare” indeed describes the unusual, intriguing small things (sometimes big) we see all around us.
Every day, everywhere. Thorough fare.
“If we could but perceive,” as the Moody Blues once said.
The Quirk to be seen, then, on Fellows in east-to-west order:
• The cottage with the sign reading “The Cottage.”
• Next door at Taylor City Park, at Fellows and Brockwood, along the fence was seen Christmas decor in the yard neighboring the park — sleigh and reindeer — for months. Either the property owner was just storing the decor until the holidays, or they placed it there, intentionally, for all in the park to enjoy. (Meanwhile, the park sign has been missing for a few months.)
• Two blocks west, slow down and look for the 8-foot mushroom sculpture in psychedelic colors. This is a revisit; the impressive fungus figure has been mentioned here before, but the owners have since added dozens of smaller mushrooms (and other figures) at the base and along the sidewalk. The main mushroom also lights up at night.
• A couple hundred yards west, just beyond that first dip west of Brockwood, look to a front yard on the right and see in a maple tree a collection of … are those fluttering banners? Made of paper, plastic or fabric? Perhaps vinyl, the way they spin rapidly in the wind?
A closer look: they are wood. Specifically, repurposed ceiling fan paddles, about two feet long, attached by heavy string to the branches. Someone has painted the paddles with butterflies that spin rapidly in the wind. When first espied in January, the paddles were painted with hobby horses, Christmas lights and other images. (Their wind-aided movement calls to mind the term “maple mobile.” See them in action in a forthcoming special, video-enhanced edition of Quirk column we plan to call “Kinetic Quirk.”) Whoever hung the paddles deserves extra credit for a stationary adornment — over on the fence, a three-foot wooden dragonfly that looks like it lost all but one of its ceiling-fan paddle wings.
• You see where people display car parts and other automotive-decor on the fences or walls, but usually as a collection of fenders, hubcaps and such. Near Willamette Elementary is a yard with simple plantings, and a wooden fence adorned only with a single gray tailgate, reading “Chevrolet.”
• At Willamette, a pair of small, weathered signs, modest yet earnest, are seen in the planting area near the entrance. The signs were painted at least six years ago. This is what they say, verbatim:
“Please don’t step here. Fowers are just important as you (heart symbol)”;
“Warning/Please don’t put your feet here/Plants need room to grow.”
Quirk message for the week: Slow down, enjoy the scenery, but don’t step in peoples’ gardens.
Have you seen something that’s an example of quirk — an oddity that adds to the joy of life in Yamhill County? Email Kirby Neumann-Rea at neumann reakirby@gmail.com.
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