Texas, I Love Yew
From customer Richard, we get this information —
Did I ever tell you about the sewer-pipe crosses of Clarendon? Clarendon is a town of almost 2,000 people between Amarillo and Wichita Falls on US 287. Someone there discovered that crosses can be made from PVC pipe, not ordinary water pipe, but 5 inch sewer pipe, and that led to this:
(Click the little ones to see the big ones.)
This one is on the main drag (US 287) in front of a locally owned pharmacy. In the background you can see the one in front of the Family Dollar store. There are approximately 50 similar crosses on US287 within the city limits, and another dozen or more outside the city. Here is one at the Sonic Drive-in.
And in threes for saving the souls of dead gophers I suppose.
And in front of homes …
And in pastures.
Just so there’s no mistaking, Clarendon, Texas, makes sure that directly under the welcome from the Chamber of Commerce, there’s a Jesus warning.
Welcome to Clarendon. You’re going to hell.
I don’t know about you people from foreign states, but in Texas religious symbols made with sewer pipes is pretty much considered normal.
It’s to remind you that Jesus doesn’t put up with your crap.
Thanks to Richard for the heads up.
Up here in the North country, we have “Our Lady of the Bathtub” statues, inverted bathtubs with a statue of Mary inside, sort of looks like a shrine, very popular here.
You are not alone.
1Seems like the sort of thing that Andres Serrano would have done back in the day and Christians would be up in arms about.
2Juanita Jean, I love Yew! Last week A “lady”shouted that question to me in a crowd, and seemed surprise when I replied as loudly, “not with YOU, I hope ” She lost a bit of her warm fuzzy at the thought.
3One of the things about living in this wackadoodle state is you take stuff like this as normal. A friend came from San Francisco and was shocked by the messages in chain link fences made by sticking paper cups in the holes. Never occurred to me that was odd, and she thought that made it even funnier. She took a lot of pictures.
4A West Virginia friend of mine once said that three crosses grouped together was a sing that a Klan Rally was being planned for that location. I guess there may be some truth to that, judging from the number of crosses in Clarendon.
5Kinda like in the community in which I grew up, where the ma ‘n’ pa corner store had a little “funny” unapologetic sign that said “In G*d we Trust, everybody else pays cash”.
6They used the right material, as what else would BS flow thru if not a sewer pipe??
7Love your comeback, San Fraser … snappy without being nasty! LOL
I think when there is an overabundance of crosses, then folks must have lost the simple significance of the one true cross!!
8Just think, if Jesus had come in the last century, those folks would have electric chairs all over the place. (Seriously, the cross was an instrument of prolonged and agonizing execution….)
9Celebrating death and suffering 24/7/365 is the “christian’s” way of life in America.
10OOooohhhh Lawd won’t yew buy me twenty feet of PVCeee…
(apologies to Janice J)
11Holy Crap!
I know, I know – but hey, somebody had to say it.
12daMrs and I sometimes go driving around for fun, and sometimes for visiting, and sometimes just to take the long way home on a road we’ve never travelled before.
So we were in the car this past weekend, and I noticed something similar, out amongst the rurals here in Ohio. These were small white crosses, about 1 foot to 18 inches high, very uniform in appearance and construction, near driveways, mostly. Or the dirt track they call a driveway, up to the ramshackle doublewide.
Their size, simplicity and lack of dead flowers or deflated mylar balloons convinced me they weren’t roadside markers for traffic fatalities, unless, I thought, maybe your dog or cat now gets a cross? Or there’s a Christian Possum Society praying for roadkill?
Now, it turns out, I find that there is a movement – or perhaps several diverse movements, coalescing – called Cross (or Crosses) Across America. As you can probably recite by rote by now, their mission is to indicate that America is a “Christian” country founded by “Christian” founders, for the purposes of being more “Christian” than other, insufficiently “Christian” countries we ran away from to come here to, and is not to be taken over by other, less “Christian” “Christians” or, (capital “G” God forbid) non”Christians” like muslims, atheists or gays.
Which is why the Cross is white, presumably.
This movement has been around in one form or another for some time now, but I think the reason it’s caught my eye lately is probably due to a social media campaign in the face of recent Supreme Court and other advances of actual freedom.
To me, this is another example of “God the Tchotchke” I ranted about a couple of days ago. America is changing, for the better, IMHO, but these people’s only answer is “Oh yeah? GOD!”
Want to have some fun? If you meet one of these guys, say “Thanks! It’ll be that much easier to round you all up, when the time comes.”
Wink, wink.
13Somewhere on the highway to Texas, I think it was western Indiana or around Effingham, Illinois, there’s a cross that looks to be about five or six stories high–just to be sure you can see it out on the board-flat prairie.
14Freak ’em out. Sneak around and paint a red U N on each cross. Bet they come down in a hurry. Texas wingnuts. Lord love ’em and you don’t even have to water them.
15I wonder if there are a large number of would-be crappers with knees (and cheeks) locked together because all the crapper facilities are down due to missing plumbing. And the next semi-load is not due in from someplace in Illinois until next month!
16So US287 is either the Highway to Heaven or more likely, the Highway to Hell. Depends on your moralistic point of view.
17Counting PVC crosses can’t be as fun as counting Mail Pouch Tobacco signs.
Iron Celt has seen the gigantic cross in Effingham, IL and lived to tell the tale! Now will these super-Christian Texans of Clarendon take up the challenge and build an even bigger one?
18http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10913
If you are in Clarendon, TX you might already be in Hell…
In Waterbury, CT there is a Cross on a hilltop over the city on land that was supposed to be developed into Holyland, USA an amusement park by a guy known as “Brother Julius” which ran out of money and was never finished…
http://waterburylife.com/uploads/3/1/3/2/3132611/7801704.jpg?448
Kind of a creepy place now…
Heck! For that matter Waterbury is a creepy place known as Dirty Water…
The FBI was investigating Former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano a Republican for corruption when they came onto evidence in a wiretap that he was a pedophile having sex with a prostitute, as well as with her 10-year-old niece and her eight-year-old daughter.
Philip disappeared for a long time (37 Years) off to Club Fed…
In 2000 he ran against Joe Lieberman and lost in an election where our choices were “Bad” and “Much Worse.”
Yep… Dirty Water…
19Maryelle, or Barbasol signs. I miss them in a way. Used to be roads through rural Michigan were loaded with these and other signs and they sure made a long drive less tedious. Nowadays they have been replaced with enormous billboards advertising stuff nobody needs or wants and block the view of really beautiful country.
20@Maggie
Burma-Shave sponsored the signs that you’re recollecting.
21Shoot, you ought to see the giant cross out between Groom and Shamrock (that’s on I-40 about 80 miles or so east of Amarillo). Thing’s close to 200 feet tall.
22Carol, Right you are!
In the north the “Eyetalians” seem to go for Mary on the half shell or Madonna in a bathtub…
In Norwich, CT there was a house that had a shrine set up on the hillside with about 140 of them set up…
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-inyukUOGN4/S8NBdacSMNI/AAAAAAAAARk/tBlThhtvEY4/s1600/Sanctuary%203.jpg
The 85 year old owner died and the property was foreclosed with all of them removed as it was kind of an eyesore. The property is currrently overgrown and being reclaimed by nature…
23Try this link instead…
24http://culturehighculturelow.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-first-experience-with-outsider-art.html
@ Redwood. Here in Vermont, the “Our Lady of the Bathtub” seems to increase as you go North into Quebec, The Italians (of which I am one) have those and they have the international sign for “here lives an Italian who went to Florida” the pink flamingo, in the front yard!
25Maybe they forget that a cross represents giving one’s life for everyone else?
26Back in the day,white cross was a street name for amphetamines or speed. Good for weight loss and keeping yourself awake and extremely busy for several hours at a time. Big with truckers. Not that I would know from experience because I was never a trucker.
27“I don’t know about you people from foreign states, but in Texas religious symbols made with sewer pipes is pretty much considered normal.”
You made my day, JJ.
28Good thing you told me that. Ignorant northerner I be, I would have assumed they were U-lock favorable bike racks and hitched my ride to one.
29I’m not sure where I will spend eternity but it damn well will not be in Clarendon.
What a terrible waste of good sewer pipe, though I note that at least it has been used for the transmission of waste products.
30Somewhere, in some context, somedamnhow, the phrase “Sewer-pipe Jesus” will make it into my first novel.
For sure.
31I don’t know–that grotto in CT might have looked pretty cool with flowers and shrubs instead of so many tchotchke icons.
32I’m still grappling with “History is still happening here”, and “The End is near!”
Which is it?
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