(male announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by: Generous supporters of Kansas City Public Television.

And: Thank you.

(man) ♪ Welcome to a show about things you can see ♪ ♪ without going far, and a lot of them are free.

♪ ♪ If you thought there was nothing ♪ ♪ in the old heartland, ♪ ♪ you ought to hit the blacktop ♪ ♪ with these fools in a van.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Randy does the steering so he won't hurl.

♪ ♪ Mike's got the map, such a man of the world.

♪ ♪ That's Don with the camera, ♪ ♪ kind of heavy on his shoulder.

♪ ♪ And that giant ball of tape, it's a world record holder.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Georgia...♪ (Randy) We get letters, Mike doesn't sing.

♪ No peace I find.

♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, did we just see what I think I saw?

Hi, Don the camera guy here, exactly one day late for Homer's big to-do, leaving these two producers with egg on their face.

Yeah, this'd be one of those "timing is everything" moments, right?

[chuckling] Yeah.

But there probably are still are some eggs, don't you suppose?

Or do you think they got 'em all?

(Don) I don't think, for liability purposes, they'd be hiding 'em right here on the side of this highway.

That's not an Easter Egg.

Easter egg?

No, not an Easter egg.

That's not an egg.

(Don) Hey, I think there's one down there in the swamp.

There's a lot less of a crowd today, though.

Easy huntin' today.

No kids.

(Randy) Oh, that's the bog.

(Don) Look, there's your taillight.

Find any?

No.

No eggs.

No eggs.

(Don) Well, they'll be even better in June.

(Don) So the yolk's on us, and that's okay, but not finding things won't make much of a show.

So it's back into the Ford Freestar and on to Cornelia, a town that's famous for fruit, complete with a giant apple to prove it.

And just a few blocks away, in the Loudermilk Boarding House Museum, a comprehensive collection of everything Elvis, complete with, and I'm not making this up, one of his warts.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for Joni Mabe.

I didn't become a fan until the day he died.

There was a tribute on the radio, and I listened to it all day long when I was washing and waxing an old Scout-- International Scout.

I knew the music from, like, the '50s and the '70s, but then they played gospel and the ballads, and his voice just-- I just became obsessed on that day.

Then I did my first Elvis artwork then.

I started making Elvis prints, then people had memorabilia and they started trading with me, and then I started, you know, the collection.

I just combined my art and then my collection together and formed the museum.

(Randy) So you're still making, all the time.

(Joni) Oh, yeah.

If it's got glitter on it, it's my art.

And then other artists have given me works, and I exhibit them.

As the museum grew, the title grew from the Elvis Room to Joni Mabe's Traveling Panoramic Encyclopedia of Everything Elvis.

And I was on the road for 14 years, and it was a lot of work hauling this around everywhere.

I had 22 big wooden crates on wheels, then this house was threatened, so I decided to set it up permanently here.

The Loudermilk Boarding House was built in 1908.

My great grandparents ran it as a boarding house.

There were boarders that stayed 20, 30 years here, and there were some that just stayed one night.

(Mike) And, as far as we know, Elvis never stayed here.

(Joni) Not that I know of.

His wart is here now, though.

(Mike) Oh, my goodness.

Part of him is here.

The wart, I bought from a doctor who removed it before he went into the Army in 1958.

It was on his right wrist, and you can see it in different pictures; I'll point it out.

There...it's right there.

(Mike) Is that a wart?

(Joni) Yeah, it was huge.

Here's the wart right here, in color.

People want to clone Elvis with the wart, but I don't want it cut on.

They would have to slice into it.

That wart is a virus, so you would have a viral DNA, and it wouldn't be pretty, what would come out, I don't think.

Also, if Elvis was cloned, he wouldn't have a mama.

You know, Elvis was a mama's boy, you know, and it just would not be the same.

It would be cruel to clone him, I believe.

I think it's puffed up since I've gotten it.

I think it's gotten a little bit bigger.

(Randy) And it's behind glass, unlike, I think, just about everything else here.

(Joni) Yeah, it's protected.

And here's the Maybe Elvis Toenail.

The Maybe Elvis Toenail, I found it in Graceland in the Jungle Room in the shag carpet.

And I'm not 100% sure that it's Elvis'; that's why I call it the Maybe Elvis Toenail.

(Randy) Ho w deep was that shag th at you found it in?

It was in one of the fibers.

It was, like, you know, stuck in.

So the vacuum cleaner hadn't picked it up.

The people at Graceland said, "Doesn't she know we have vacuumed since Elvis died?"

[Mike and Randy Laughing] This is called the Moody Blue Dress, right here, and it's probably my second outfit that I made, and I would wear it to the candlelight service at Graceland every year, during the Death Week.

It was sort of my summer outfit, and then I made this as the winter outfit.

(Randy) Are you a sewing machine, yourself, so to speak?

(Joni) Well, I don't know, really, how.

I don't know how to do zippers and sleeves and stuff like that.

(Randy) Well, you are the Queen of the King.

(Joni) I am the Queen of the King.

Joni Mabe the Elvis Babe, that's another one of my names.

I'm still collecting and buying on eBay, and people mail me stuff and send me stuff and bring me stuff, and I'm always collecting.

A fan gave me these.

These are actual pictures she took of Elvis in concert, and he wore Band-Aids around his fingers.

I do know that Elvis dyed his hair black to look like Tony Curtis, so it would look better in the movies, because he really has brown hair.

I don't know.

I guess is face is just great, you know.

He's just got the best lips and nose.

The girls wanted to love him, but the boys wanted to be like him.

You know?

Are you through?

(Don) Ye ah.

If you're through I'm gonna lock it up.

All right.

I don't trust y'all.

[all laughing] I keep the keys in a very secret place.

The secret place is not in the bathroom on the third floor.

(Don) Joni believes that, like Vegas and that field o' dreams, if she builds it, they will come... all the way to Cornelia.

And, to sweeten the deal, she's built the world's only Bed & Elvis in the boarding house basement.

Thanks to that wart, Joni's in the Guinness Book, so we knew she'd be thrilled to meet another world record holder, which she was.

What's in the middle of it?

Nothing but pure video tape.

Really?

(Mike) No serial fillers.

(Don) After some much-needed R&R on the veranda, we grabbed up the ball, piled into the van, and resumed the lengthy driving portion of this show, driving through those north Georgia pines into some, well, South Carolina pines.

Now, an artist named Richard Burnside lives back here, somewhere, but no one could say exactly where, so we've set sights on yet another roadside attraction: some giant hands in someone's front yard, somewhere between Pickens and Pumpkintown.

Is it any surprise we're coming up empty handed?

(Mike) It's an old tip.

It could be a little faulty.

(Randy) It's a fingertip, really.

It's just, kind of, part of our never-ending battle to find body parts scattered across the United States.

(Don) At least that's better than losing them.

But you know it's going poorly when we're asking at the Quick-E-Mart and flagging down guys on bikes.

(Mike) Do you guys know-- There's supposed to be a big hand, a sculpture of a big hand on this road.

Have you seen it?

I don't know.

(Don) Counting those Easter eggs, it's two strikes already.

We should quit while we're behind and head for Greenville.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Could not have guessed it would bring this.

Looks like further fruit on our video menu, but it's more than just a fine photo op.

Knowing, as I do, that this TV thing could tank at any time, I like to keep my options open.

Hey, I was just getting good when the boys say, "We got to go and wander around some more, looking for one of those folk art yards we like so well," Herron Briggs Whirligigs, which we have now located, but there is a problem.

Herron passed away a few years back, and today, at least, the lady of the house wants nothing to do with us.

I know how she feels.

Good thing they're expecting us at the mansion: The Gassaway Mansion, that is, built by a baron of business and owned now by one William Thomas Thompson.

William made a fortune of his own, lost it, got socked by a devastating neurological disorder, then picked up a brush one day and started painting-- and painting some more, including a 300-footer, based on the Book of Revelations, that's hung in museums across the land.

(Randy) It started with a dream in Hawaii; is that where you were?

(William) It was more like a vision... where I saw the coming of the Lord and the world on fire and a command on my life to paint what I saw and to paint art, period.

And I've painted ever since.

It was overwhelming, and it changed my thinking and changed my life.

I did not know what the vision was about, at first.

But once I painted, painting began to grow on me, and I realized the power of the brush.

I do not need to know how to paint art.

I feel that I'm guided by the Spirit, and I don't claim that everything I do is holy, righteous, or good advice.

Everything I say maybe needs to be checked out, but I do feel that I'm in God's will now, more than ever in my life.

And I feel that I'm the happiest.

I believe that visual art is the greatest way to express what I feel and what I see.

This painting will show a positive side of Las Vegas, as they would want it, but it shows a positive side of eternity in heaven and the coming of the Lord and the Saints of God.

I'm trying to create a clear barrier between the two; it would not cross over.

My place, now, is to paint what I see is the true Christian gospel, and, of course, in stages.

I painted five years before I felt led to paint the Book of Revelations prophecy.

I'm not an authority on it.

I don't propose to be an authority.

I only paint what I feel is truth and what I feel like painting.

I've never been afraid to put the paint on the canvas.

(Mike) That might be the understatement of the year, that you're not afraid to put the paint on the canvas.

I mean, just looking around this house, do you sleep?

Do you find any time to lay down?

I just can't imagine how you did all this.

I do believe in sleep.

I try to get eight hours of sleep, regularly, but I do go without sleep, at times, when it's necessary.

(Mike) 300 feet is a football field's worth.

(William) Well, from the time I felt led to paint it, I felt that it should be that long, yes.

It showed in '96 in Atlanta.

That's the first time I had seen it up--all of it up.

I think that I want to paint even much larger.

I always wanted to paint the sky.

This is a way of painting the sky, of course, but I guess I'm really saying I want to paint something that's suspended out there.

I want to paint a mountain.

(Randy) Do you read up on those kinds of artists who've done this kind of volume?

(William) Very little.

I hear about other artists, and I hear about great artists, and I still have to convince myself that I'm any kind of artist.

I just know that what I feel led to do I can do, and the vision to paint art became my hands, because I'd been crippled a year and my hands, today, would be considered 75% handicapped or crippled, yet, you know, the vision is so strong that it's like it became my hands and became my feet and became my voice; and everything I needed, it became.

You know, I have never painted, just to sell art.

I just cannot ever think of it as a commercial venture on my part.

I almost wish there was a way there could be no money involved, because, although I do have expense in paints and canvas, but I'd like to give it free if someone would hang it.

(Mike) I'll hang it.

(Don) Talk about TV weasels.

Mike's angling for art, again, while Randy's upstairs, sucking down coffee and cheesecake, served up by our gracious hosts.

Now, for a guy who's seen the apocalypse, William is a very friendly fellow, and the mansion's nice too.

But, once again, the road does beckon, and it beckons us to Gaffney, known for an architectural oddity born of civic pride.

I'm talking about the one-of-a-kind, no-doubt-about-it, you'll-know-it-when-you-see-it, peach-shaped water tower.

(Mike) Looks pretty ripe.

(Don) That some say resembles certain body parts.

(Mike) Turn around, big butt.

(Mike) Smiling down on the Fatz Cafe.

(Don) Hey, no more wisecracks out of you.

(Don) This calls for some catch.

Going deep?

Oh, nice.

(Don) In the old peach basket.

(Randy) Okay, right up by the sphincter.

(Mike) How many songs can you think of with the word "peach" in the title?

(Don) Uh...none.

Well, there was Peaches and Herb.

(Don) Well, I remember Professor Plum in the-- Oww!

Do I get to take my base?

Sorry, man.

I'm sorry.

That Murphy, he plays hardball, doesn't he?

(Don) Kind of like Ty Cobbler and Peach Rose.

Sorry, but it's hard to resist in the presence of such steel-tanked greatness.

(Don) A million gallons of syrup.

(Don) Which reminds me... Hey, we better get out of here before we get picked up by the fuzz.

You talking to me?

Okay, we're looking for... Pearl's.

(Don) Okay, here's a traveler's tip learned the hard way.

If you're looking for Pearl Fryar's place, coming from Columbia and you make it to Bishopville, you've gone too far, though the trimmed-up trees downtown are a topiary tip-off to what lies in store at Pearl's place on the outskirts of town.

(Randy) Oh , look at that.

(Mike) Look at those.

(Don) Yep, this is it.

Get ready for some genuine jaw dropping.

(Pearl) See, when I moved out here, there was about three houses, and the whole area was a cornfield, so when I bought this piece of property, I had to wait to get the corn out so I could build my house.

And every plant that you see, including pine trees and all, I put it out there.

(Mike) When you put all those trees and stuff in to begin with, did you know this is what you wanted to do?

(Pearl) My idea was to get Yard of the Month, but I lived outside the city limits, so now I got to come up with something to make them make an exception, so I went to the nursery, and he had a plant cut in two tiers.

And he says, "I'll show you how to do it."

So he took me out there and gave me a three-minute lesson on how to cut two tiers, and I took the three-minute lesson, came back, and turned it into this.

(Randy) And did you get Yard of the Month?

(Pearl) I finally got Yard of the Month, after about five years, and a senator from this area came out and told them, "If you don't go out and give him Yard of the Month, gonna just start giving it."

I love quotations, and one of my favorite quotations is, I saw it when I was in the military in Korea, in Stars and Stripes, and it was, "He or she that does no more than the average will never rise above the average."

So when I came out here, I knew I knew it, but I didn't know anything about gardening.

So I, basically, looked at what is everyone else doing, and in order to get what I want, or the attention I want, I got to do just a cut above average.

So I took the same plants that you find in any garden in this area, and even-- I got spruces, plants that shouldn't even grow here.

And I decided I would cut shapes, and once I took those shapes and created my own style and technique, I began to get attention for that, because it was different.

(Randy) Have you changed the shapes over the years?

Did you, kind of, suddenly realize, "Oh, I can do this.

Oh, I can do this."

(Pearl) Well, anytime you do something long enough, it becomes a technique and a style.

I mean, it's no different from an artist at paint.

See what I mean?

So to me, it's the same thing with plants.

I just can't work with canvas.

You know, in other words, if you said to me, "If you could use your imagination and put this on paper," I can't do it.

But I can take a plant, and over a period of five to seven or ten years, and create the design that I can imagine.

(Randy) You said five to seven years.

(Pearl) Yeah, most pieces take-- if it's a 20-foot piece, sometimes I can do it in five to seven years; sometimes it will take ten years.

See, my whole style and technique is the skeleton look.

See, if you look at my work and you see the foliage in relationship to the trunk and the branches, 'cause I want that exposed, and then I do creative things around it.

I don't water, spray, or fertilize.

Everything is done organically.

All right, if you look at the forest, it's never watered, sprayed.

It's that natural, organic, recycling process that nature uses.

You know, the leaves decays, so I use a lot of mulch and that kind of thing.

The book says, you know, you shouldn't be able to do this with this many varieties of plants.

They're going to tell you, "This is where you only use yews and boxwood."

And you go in there and tell them, "Look, I'm using pine trees, oak trees," you know.

They look like, "Are you out of your mind?"

Everybody's saying this shouldn't grow here.

(Randy) Did they say that a lot to you in the beginning?

Well, yeah, they still say it.

I just tell them, you know, you shouldn't have been able to do this, so, for one time in my life, ignorance paid off.

All of these are throw-aways.

All of these are plants they threw away at the nursery.

And he gave me a deal on these plants, here, the big ones.

He only charged me, like, $7.

I find people responds to you according to the vibes you send off.

If you always positive, people are going to respond to you positively, and once you start something and you show sincereness about it, people will help you.

When you exit my garden, the last thing you see before you leave is, "Love, Peace, and Goodwill."

And if I have missed you, by the time you walk through the garden and leave here, then you're pretty hard to touch, 'cause I try to create a garden with emotion.

So that when you walk away, you feel differently than you did when you stopped.

That was my idea of gardening.

(Don) In case you're wondering, Pearl worked for a can company before he got bit by the gardening bug, and, yes, he makes those scrap metal sculptures too, striving to keep that cut above.

Bishopville's better for it, but we're not done here, yet.

There's still one more stop, a few miles further from town, where Dalton Stevens, aka the Button King, is putting the finishing touches on a museum of his own, and, being the consummate showman, Dalton's got a song that explains it all.

♪ Give me a bag of buttons; buttons are my bag.

♪ ♪ I start sewing buttons before my eyes begin to sag.

♪ ♪ Buttons will make or break me when I sign the big contract.

♪ ♪ Then I'll be the richest of all in some of your eyes.

♪ (Randy) Sleep problems: the story behind this whole thing?

(Dalton) Insomnia, yes-- don't sleep.

(Randy) When did insomnia turn into button-making?

In '83.

♪ I counted all the sheep in most parts of the world.

♪ ♪ When I finally ran out, I was still in a whirl, ♪ ♪ so in the middle of the night, nothing to do, ♪ ♪ I made a 16,000-button suit.

♪ ♪ Now, I'd be lyin' if there wasn't nothin' to it, ♪ ♪ 'cause all my neighbors ask, "Well, why'd you do it?"

♪ ♪ Well, buttons are my bag when I created sack, ♪ ♪ I'm-a doing pretty good for an insomniac.

♪ The funeral home in Bishopville gave me the hearse, but before that, I had done my coffin.

I got 60,000 on it.

(Randy) So you got, actually, two coffins.

(Dalton) That's right, I got two.

I got one that I'm gonna keep in the museum-- the first one that I made, 'cause I tore the lining up in it.

The lid fell on me one night, out here, and I was in it.

(Randy) It's impressive.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

You're not worried about anybody trying to dig this up after you're down in the ground?

I'm gonna go in the other one.

They're not going to dig me up.

If they do, I'm not gonna know nothing about it.

And, you know, the toilet, up yonder.

I got a toilet up there.

(Mike) Now, is that going with you too?

(Dalton) No.

♪ Now, don't you think I'm out of my mind.

♪ ♪ I do crazy things like this all the time.

♪ ♪ Buttons on my suit, banjo, and guitar, ♪ ♪ my wife got upset when I started on my car.

♪ ♪ So I bought some old wheels, very next day, ♪ ♪ 'cause I thought, for sure, I'd have the devil to pay.

♪ ♪ Friends don't think I'm ready to crack, ♪ ♪ I just can't sleep, I'm an insomniac.

♪ ♪ Now, I sew buttons, I don't chug-a-lug, ♪ ♪ and smoke the weed, and do no drugs.

♪ ♪ Buttons can be square or round; ♪ ♪ they keep my pants from a-fallin' down.

♪ (Randy) Are there colors that you just love to put on, or is every color good?

(Dalton) Just all of them.

All of them is good.

Just long as I have enough to make my design.

(Mike) That's pretty time-consuming work there, though, with those buttons.

(Dalton) One at a time.

Every button you see, one at a time.

You look at what I've done.

There's 517 before any fell off.

There's 517 on my shoes.

♪ Give me a bag of buttons; buttons are my bag.

♪ ♪ I start sewing buttons before my eyes begin to sag.

♪ (Mike) Now, I like that you've trademarked Button King, 'cause--are there a lot of other Button Kings out there?

(Dalton) No, I don't think there are.

If they have, I've never seen them.

(Mike) You've got to have a creative eye for what you're doing.

You can't just slap the buttons on.

(Dalton) You can't just go and stick a button on.

You have to think before you do it, you know.

(Randy) You've never had a museum, or anything like that, right?

You've always gone to the other places.

(Dalton) I've had to go other places.

I've been all over everywhere entertaining.

I've been in a commercial.

I've been on Paul Harvey.

I've been on everything.

I done well.

♪ Buttons will make or break me when I sign the big contract.

♪ ♪ Then I'll be the richest of all insomniacs.

♪ (Don) What more needs to be said?

Now, I'm not sleeping much, either, and I am still Don the camera guy, signing off.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights on this show and how to find them, visit us on the web at: DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling: Captioning and audio description provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Captioning and audio description byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com You can cobble 'em.

You can pie 'em.

You can pick 'em.

What would it take to put you in that Ford Freestar?

(Mike) I don't know.

It looks like it's on the other side of the highway, to me.

Maybe we'll just follow it around.

(Don) You are a lousy actor.

(male announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by: Generous supporters of Kansas City Public Television.

And: Thank you.