Day 7. Wow. I saw some
crap on Day 7.
The day started like
any other at Holden Beach – Julia and Brother Peter headed for the beach and
The Mayor and I went pickin’. Who would have thought? Pretty typical, but then it got a bit
crazy, or as the kids these days say, cray.
During last year’s
trip, The Mayor took me to a place called Varnamtown. As one rolls up on
V-town, one is enticed by many visual spectacles, and greeted by this:
No, thine ocular organs
do not deceive. What you see is basically a hospital emergency room comprised
of mannequins and medical equipment. And yes, all items are for sale. Better
yet, the location is what they refer to as “The Tunnel.” The Tunnel is really
more of a PVC pipe quonset hut frame covered in blue tarps, the type often seen
used to cover roof damage after a storm. The “floor” of The Tunnel is little
more than a suede-looking fabric placed directly on top of the soil and stretched
across the ground from one side to the other. With all of the recent rain in the
area, the floor was muddy beneath the fabric and the smell of mildew/basement was overwhelming to the olfactory senses.
Add to that the center of our solar system beating down upon the extremely
sturdy and heat retaining woven poly blue tarps and this scenario had the
makings of another Joshua Tree-like near death experience. The Mayor passed on
the offer to brave The Tunnel. Smart man.
Last year, Varnamtown
could only be appreciated from the perimeter as the store and The Tunnel, but
also the actual “town” were not open the day we stopped. I was still able to
take many great photos, but the experience did not even begin to come close to
the memories that today’s visit created.
Take the following quote
for example – perhaps the best quote of the entire trip. As we left the
store/tunnel, two women with the thickest redneck accents known to humankind said the
following:
Redneck woman #1: Go
on back and around to the gold toilet and turn right.
Redneck woman #2: And
close the gate behind you else the chickens'll get out.
What does one do with
that information? Goes back to the gold toilet and turns right, of course! As
we turned, we came upon this scene:
As Frank Barone used to
say, “Holy Crap!” Toilets, old cars, movie set pieces, junk of all types and
materials, a herd of roosters (yes, multiple roosters!) and a pride of
seemingly feral, but actually quite friendly, cats – the latter of which I, of
course, enjoyed. Again, “Holy Crap!” What kind of world do we live in where
roosters and cats, sworn natural enemies, live together in seeming harmony among discarded
commodes and Six Flags sets? Nothing made sense and it felt as though I was
walking through one of those strange early morning drool-inducing dreams one has
five minutes before the alarm sounds. It was odd, bizarre, and peculiar, but
also one of the most strangely interesting places I've ever visited.
So the next time
someone tells you to turn right at the gold toilet, I highly recommend that you
obey. You really can’t go wrong with that type of instruction.
After V-town, we
visited several other pickin’ places and then started to head back for a good
old-fashioned July 4th Southern Shrimp Bowl – it’s actually a “boil”
where potatoes, sausages, cobs of corn and shrimp are all tossed into the boil
to make good eats for all guests. However, the thickness of the accents
transforms the word “boil” into “bowl.” Thus, hilarity ensues. However, before
the bowl could even begin, there was a stop at Mary’s.
Mary’s Gone Wild
Visionary Folk Art Garden and Doll Village is a strange looking property on
Holden Beach Road in Supply, North Carolina. It’s part pickin’ place, part doll
collection and part outdoor art studio. The pickin’ part is in the front room
of a house like structure, which is really nothing but a cover for Mary’s
hoarding problem. There’s a small path into the room and its various nooks and
crannies, a path that one must take in reverse to exit. While being built above
ground, if you were to enter wearing a blindfold, you would bet your first-born
and your dominant hand that you had been led down into an unfinished, mildew-infested
basement. In fact, The Tunnel at Varnamtown and Mary’s Palace of Hoarding, are
most certainly related –perhaps siblings, but cousins at the very least. I’m
not sure how it’s possible, but two of the strangest, most interesting places
I’ve ever seen are located within a mere five miles/10 minutes of each other.
Coincidence? I think not.
Like Varnamtown, Mary’s
also had little houses, big enough to enter, but too small for human
comfort, littering the property. Her houses had themes for her doll and
Coca-Cola collections and such, but they were also storage bins for her
artwork.
Here’s how Mary got
started, according to her website:
“One morning in the summer of 1996, God told Mary to go out into her
front yard to build a village for her collection of 6,000 dolls…
Like Noah building his ark, Mary set to work despite her lack of
carpentry skills, armed only with love, faith and a non-stop sense of humor. God
had put a blueprint in Mary’s head, and Mary followed it to create a village...
In 1998, Mary got another calling from God. This time he told Mary to
paint on the reverse side of old glass windows. Never trained in art, God put
the images in Mary’s head, and Mary painted them.”
Did I mention, “Holy
Crap?” This woman is borderline certifiable, yet you cannot avert your eyes and
you even find yourself being fascinated by the silliness.
As The Mayor and I
walked the grounds we were astonished by each new house and its contents. Again, it was
strangely cool. She’s got about 800,000,000 old windows on which she has
painted mermaids, fish, birds and anything else that has popped into her noggin
over the years. We heard the sound of machinery in one of the houses and came upon
a short, red-headed woman of whom The Mayor asked, “Are you Mary?” “All day
long,” the gnome-like creature, with a power drill in one hand, retorted and followed up with a Lewis Skolnick, Revenge of the Nerds laugh that further conveyed the fact that she’s happily,
artistically insane.
Not only does she
paint, she also builds themed houses and tree houses, some from wood, and some out of
old bottles. Yep. Bottles. The bottoms of the bottles face outward and filter
any and all natural light into the inner square footage. One tree house is decorated with various depictions of Jesus at
various stages of his career – from eight pound, six ounce newborn, baby Jesus
to “Eli, eli lama sabachthani” Jesus. For some reason, there’s also what
appears to be a Chucky doll hanging out in there. Not sure if it’s supposed to be a
representation of the temptation of Jesus by El Diablo, but it’s creepy
nonetheless. Mary’s website reveals that this is the Chapel and that it’s
the very same chapel in which she WAS MARRIED! Yep. Mary be cray.
It’s strange stuff and
the photos honestly don’t do either Mary’s or V-town justice. They are sights
that one must behold live and in person.
So if you’re even near
Supply, North Carolina, visit these two Crazy Towns. You will not, nay cannot,
understand either place, but like Jimmie John’s, the smells are free.
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