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On family trips I’d near press myself through the car window when we passed 10,000 Seashells which promised, among other things promoted like Burma Shave signs, A Giant Man Eating Clam. I’d crane my head for a glimpse of that fabled clam, but the outside of 10,000 Seashells was all vivid decoration with nothing real. For years my heart’s desire was to see that clam, and roughly four times a year I’d face bitter disappointment as Dad drove by without a pause. Even the excuse of bodily function didn’t work on my father. He knew well that I’d plan ahead for a “got to go” break coinciding with the approach of the 10,000. Dad was simply not going to stop for a tourist trap junk shop. Mother was no better. She was arguably worse advising me to “tie a knot in it.” When you’re young the combination of continued disappointment and bad advice make for a sullen period in the family trip that would be relieved only when one of the cruel adults inflicting suffering on me wanted coffee or needed a washroom. When I was ten life was seldom fair.

Roadside attractions of the 10,000 Seashells (I recall two such along old 53 as we passed through Wisconsin to and from Minnesota) calibre are no more. We still have them but current versions are in the form of outlet centers, fabricated pioneer villages, and the home of the giant donut; donuts having replaced clams and get eaten instead of doing the eating. President Eisenhower, promoter of the interstate road system for military defense, was the inadvertent killer of roadside attractions of the 10,000 Seashells type. No longer can California tourists stop their cars outside the recreation of an iconic teepee from the Great Plains that’s been transported to an attraction in Minnesota for the purpose of selling moccasins made in Japan. The tourist now has to get off the freeway and go inside the truck-stop-shopping-mall-fuel-dining establishment to buy tourist junk from China or Bangladesh. It’s not the same, though the Chinese have managed an excellent copy of the garish blue colored moccasins grandmothers still but for the embarrassment of their grandsons. But, what is commerce about if not money and questionable taste?

Some attractions grew around the labors of an eccentric individual. The House on the Rock is an example of the type though there are other examples usually sprung from the unrequited love of a bachelor transformed into a stone castle or edifice built of glass bottles. The nationality of these bachelors is quite predictable, but I won’t (tempted as I am) go into that. It’s a curious thing the way a pattern will form with one culture expressing grief in poems or memorial projects while another goes for blood or in the case of Khomeini a funeral stampede.

The topic of attractions along the road has some local North Shore flavor that partly makes up for the loss of caged bear cubs and stockade deer that were once so vibrant (I’m trying to be nice) a part of the Highway 61 scene north of Duluth. Over the past few years the attraction in the photo has grown and grown. It is in total several hundred feet long so a photo of the entire thing lacks a sense of what it’s made of. The smaller close up manages that so you can see the collection of rock, driftwood, and garden critters gone into the effort. From top to bottom (the scene goes far overhead on a cliff) there are enough ornaments to supply a garden shop. The British (here I go in risky territory again) are fond of gardens and of clutter which they combine into what they call a folly. A proper folly has to be artistic in some measure of the word and impractical in any measure of that word.  A quality folly inspires awe of the WHO, WHAT, and/or WHY variety which this surely does.

I don’t wish to prejudice readers, but this is the work of one individual who has risen to the level of an unrequited bachelor without having to be one. He is, instead, a member of the Minnesota legislature. That seems to explain an awful lot, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to connect legislating with folly, but the two manage to coincide with enough regularity I’ll not be seen as stretching the truth with bias and prejudice, a task better left in the hands of those most experienced in its use; you know who they are. Some of you will say politicians, bureaucrats, attorneys, liberals, or conservatives, but you could include just about anyone and not be wrong,

On the other hand we’ve lost an attraction the loss of which is something of an attraction itself; the centerline rumble strips recently installed on Highway 61 east of Grand Marais. There was much complaint of the Gatling Gun noise of these “safety” improvements which have now been mostly removed. So, first all the center grooves were cut. Next new lines were painted. Then they were covered back up followed by new lines painted. The rumble RRR is now a mere rrr. But here’s the odd part. A mile from my house and continuing the next two miles the full rumble is maintained. My three miles will have an unprecedented safety record with statistics to prove we’ve had no more of the crashes we were already not having. I feel doubly secure now and just wish I knew how to express my admiration and respect for whoever is in charge.