(male announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by Fred and Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of Kansas City Public Television, and by viewers like you.

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.

♪ ♪ (Randy) We're actually ahead of schedule here, because we're trying to beat the rain.

And we got to see the caveman head.

Day one, and we're ahead of schedule.

I know; isn't that crazy?

(Don) Dear TV mailbag, should this be cause for celebration?

Hi; Don the camera guy here, a few miles past Nashville but well within its rhinestoney reach.

I think Reba McEntire lives in Lebanon too.

You're kidding.

You think she might be home?

She'd probably want to talk to celebrities such as ourselves, don't you think?

(Don) TV weasels would be more like it.

We're only here to see that head, which, if I've got this right, permanently resides in the window at Cuz's Antiques, somewhere on Lebanon's quaint downtown square.

(Mike) Park that thing.

That's Cuz's.

Cuz; all right, Cuz.

That's got to be the place.

I mean, it says, "Cuz," it says, "Cuz."

Oh!

[stuttering quickly] "Is this an allien?

"Ran over by car on Sugar Flat Road in Lebanon, Tennessee, Ja nuary, 1989."

(Mike) You live here.

You don't know anything?

(Randy) So you're not go ing to talk?

Uh-uh.

(Mike) No , I don't blame you.

I don't want to be.

(Randy) Now, was that Reba?

I think that was Reba.

She looks so much different on TV.

She really looks different.

(Don) What little we know-- and clearly, it's not much-- is this: someone doing something they shouldn't have bumped into it, buried the creature, lopped off its noggin and took it home, till the lady of the house said, "It's got to go," and it came here.

The way it was hit, it went across.

And it was on its all-fours.

The man actually thought he had hit a deer or something or a bear even, but that's not true.

He's kind of cute.

(Mike) He is kind of cute.

He's a little furry; he'd be real soft, I'll bet.

He's got beautiful eyes.

[laughing] Do people think "alien," or do they think more, like, "bigfoot."

I think they think more like a bigfoot type of thing.

You know, a lot of people think that it's a deer, the back end of a deer, but this is not.

(Randy) Excuse me.

The back end of a deer... Looks like what?

To be made to look like a face.

Really?

Seriously.

Do tell.

We've had one.

(Don) I'm familiar with the back end of horses.

[laughing] Oh.

Way to go.

(Randy) Does it make people want to buy antiques when they see it?

(Williams) Of course it does.

This has been a great thing for people to come and look at.

I mean, all hours of the night, you'll see people out here, just driving up and getting out, coming and looking at the head.

But we have some people that come in that just really want to get real smart about it and say, "Oh, I know what that is.

That's a-da-da-da-da-da-blah."

(Randy) Do you treat them all with respect when they come in-- (Williams) I try to.

I don't argue with them about it.

Believe what you want to believe.

You know, it's ours; it is not yours, and you're not getting it, so believe whatever.

[laughing] (Don) In case you're wondering, the head is not for sale at any price.

And yes, Reba has been here.

But that's another story, and we don't have time, not with the long drive ahead, which we'll try to make quicker with the following foolishness.

Warning: crimes against music may occur.

We got a little mail.

Cool.

This one comes from J.H.

Lapsley in Olathe, Kansas.

"I wrote you recently about how the lyrics to Rare Visions "are a little bit out-of-date, since you guys are a little further than your own backyard."

(Randy) He's right about that.

We really are.

"Here are some suggested lyrics for a new verse "for those shows that you do out of the heartland.

Think about it."

See, I thought that was a shopping list.

[guitar strumming] I want us to work on Wooly Bully next.

(Don) Performance issues notwithstanding, there's nothing quite like flailing away in a Ford Freestar to make time pass faster.

Irony is, our next stop in Norris is a place where time, by design, pretty much stands still.

The Museum of Appalachia is one man's collection of, well, just about anything he could find to tell this rustic region's tale.

The folk art is what matters most to us, on display here by a Tennessee carver named Dow Pugh and Virginia's legendary Cedar Creek Charlie, who pretty much polka-dotted everything he could find.

And then there's Harrison Mayes, a coal miner with a simple message that he took great pains to get out.

His home was in Middlesboro, Kentucky, which is on the Tennessee/Kentucky line.

He started making-- putting up signs after he was crushed in the coal mine.

They thought he was going to die, and he promised the Lord that if he lived that he would spend the rest of his life serving.

He put one of these big crosses in every state except four.

Never learned to drive a car or a truck, but he would hire someone to go with him.

And they would sleep on the ground and put these signs up.

After he died, someone called me and told me that he was-- that the house was up for sale and they were afraid these crosses would be moved and, well, destroyed.

So that's when I went up and got these.

(Randy) He was doing this with-- if not a plan, at least a really big vision of-- (Irwin) Yeah, well, you see, that one's supposed to go to Brazil.

And what's this one here?

(Randy) Th is one's supposed to go to Jupiter.

(Irwin) And this one's supposed to go to the moon, down here.

You know, you could say he was ahead of his time.

But he was uneducated but was still a very ingenious and imaginative person.

And as far as I know, everybody liked-- I never heard anyone that, as they say, had an ought against him.

You know, they all thought that he was-- they knew that he was sincere.

He never begged or beseeched money from anyone.

When I got the first cross, I wanted to pay him for it, and he was almost offended.

You know, said he would never take money.

(Randy) You like his story, I gather.

(Irwin) Well, the whole museum is really about the ingenuity and honesty and the people, the people of this region.

(Randy) And all this wouldn't have happened, probably, if you hadn't taken it upon yourself to bring this and get it going, it sounds like to me.

(Irwin) Well, I guess it contributed.

Oh, come on; take some credit here.

I think--it sounds like you played a pretty pivotal role.

I'm totally responsible for all this that happened here.

Does that satisfy you?

(Don) Even with 65 acres of Appalachian past, there's still one thing you can only find out here one day a year.

That would be-- and I'm not making this up-- anvil launching on the Fourth of July.

(Irwin) I've got pictures that show it going higher than the highest trees out there, maybe 100 to 125 feet.

(Don) Must be something to see... from a safe distance.

Speaking of which, we bid a fond farewell to Mr. Irwin and headed off towards Knoxville on that Old Dixie Highway, racing the daylight to find a genuine piece of roadside Americana, one which we've been warned may be worse for wear.

(Randy) It 's sunset-- Wh oa, there it is.

(Mike) Look at that baby.

There it is.

Th ere it is.

We're going here.

Well, this is it.

It needs help.

(Mike) Oh, this was a gas station.

(Randy) Yeah, it was built to be like a gas station.

thwack!

What was that?

Did part of the plane just fall?

Look at how sad it is.

[both laughing] It's being kept up on a crutch.

(Randy) I didn't say it was going to be great.

(Mike) It's falling apart.

(Randy) Have you ever seen one like it?

No, I've never seen anything like it.

Don, have you ever seen anything like it?

(Don) I've seen a fancy one, but never a plane one.

(Mike) Please, for the enjoyment of all, no pepper.

(Don) Though this day has begun on the cloudy side, we soon saw the sun... or at least the Sun Sphere, Knoxville's permanent reminder of a World's Fair that kind of tanked, but still a great site for some vigorous a.m. catch, with the world's largest ball of videotape in tow.

(Mike) ♪ Over the Sun Sphere.

♪ [laughs] (Mike) Ho!

[woman over intercom] Hey, you guys, we're going to turn the spouts on.

(Don) Yes, the sky is talking to us now, and it seems to be saying, "You kids get out of the way, or prepare to be part of the water spectacular."

[water rushing] Even for us, this is pretty dumb.

(Randy) Come on.

Come on.

Come on up, baby.

Come on.

(Don) So now, stretched and only slightly perplexed, we took a short hop down to Alcoa, a company town if ever there was one.

(Mike) There's the big plant, Alcoa.

(Randy) I'll roll the window down and get some aluminum in here.

(Don) But the prize in our eyes is this masterpiece in pink marble across the street, built by one factory-working man back in the '30s.

His castle sat empty for years till a paramedic named Dean Fontaine saw it, bought it, and started restoring his own Millennium Manor.

It was William Andrew Nicholson who built it.

He thought that Armageddon was coming soon.

In 1936, he thought it was coming soon.

He just interpreted a Bible verse as to mean that him and 1,000 righteous people would survive Armageddon and then proceed to live for 1,000 years after that.

He figured the Armageddon would happen in 1969, but he died in '65, so...

It's rock all the way through.

It's the inside, the outside, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, everything, all rock.

There's very little concrete.

It's just--the concrete is the facade, instead of the other way around.

(Randy) So he's 61; he's out here every day?

(Fontaine) Yeah, he'd work eight hours over there and then come here and do this.

So he stayed busy.

And you start-- I start hauling some of these rocks around myself, doing repairs, and I'm amazed.

I'm only a little over 40, and I'm--it kicks my butt.

I can't imagine a 61-year-old doing that.

He built a wooden form shaped like this opening and then set these rocks all in place.

And then this right here is the keystone.

It's kind of shaped like a wedge, and it's just pushed in there.

And the concrete just fills in the gaps.

And then you can tear down the wooden structure that was here, and it's holding itself up.

It's wedged in there.

It's almost 100% arch and keystone.

I had some engineers, friends, come out and look at it.

They said it's overbuilt by 250%.

So you could, like, put another castle just like this on top of this one two times, you know.

(Randy) And did he do those too, the stones out there?

(Fontaine) Yes.

Actually, he built that wall twice.

It was right up against the road, and they came along and said, "You can't build right up against the road.

Tear it all down."

So he had to actually tear that whole wall down and build it again 6 feet back.

They called it Darby's Castle when I bought it.

And it took me a while to figure that one out.

That's the name that Kris Kristofferson came up with for a song in 1973, and they shot an album cover out front, so everyone assumed, well, this must be Darby's Castle.

But of course, it's not.

(Randy) Apparently, people have used this over time?

(Fontaine) Oh, yeah; for, like, 20 years, it was wide open and abandoned.

And I have-- Sometimes when I have an open house, I have a car drive by, and somebody will scream out the window, "Hey, man, I got high in your house."

And so it was a teenager hang-out for about 20 years.

Any time I invest in this, I know it's going to be worthwhile, because it's going to be here for a while.

So I do first-class repairs.

Of course I love the place, but the community is-- really loves this place.

I'll be out here, working on the yard, and people will drive by, and they'll just say, you know, "The place is looking good."

And you know, how often do you get that when you cut your grass?

(Randy) Now, here's-- How do they get aluminum out of the ground?

Does it come out in those big foil sheets?

[laughs] Yeah.

(Don) When questions like that start popping out, we know it's time to leave, but not before the ceremonial exchange of branded casual wear, which left all parties smiling.

Then it's back in the van for a long haul alongside more Appalachians, towards Lake Ocoee, a few miles outside Benton, to meet an artist known as Bucket Man for reasons which will soon become apparent.

[blowtorch hissing] (Hoskinson) I started back in '87 on a Fourth of July weekend with a Bic lighter, and went up to Lake Lanier with another couple.

And we sat down at that picnic table and ate lunch.

And they went off running around, and I sat there with a Bic lighter and made a little man out of the spoon and fork-- plastic.

And I liked what happened so much that I went home and lit the torch.

I'm familiar with the torch because I was a house painter.

So I messed with spoons and forks.

Then I graduated to the bucket.

I did faces in the buckets for another five years, and then I graduated to the meltdown.

That's taking the bucket and melting it down.

Each foot on this is a 5-gallon bucket.

And up we go.

You can't do this with any other material the way that I've done.

You know, everybody carves from what they see, you know, and I build from nothing, really, the bucket.

This is one of my gators.

It floats.

You can see the snake's floating.

The turtle's floating, eyes above water.

This is--each link in the chain is a 5-gallon bucket.

I'm still working-- I'm still working on this piece.

This is an unfinished piece, but I-- But it sometimes takes me over a year.

You know, I don't-- I try not to get in no hurry.

This is 14 buckets.

This saves me $30 a month.

This is my Deadhead.

(Randy) Dreams?

Do these come from any particular-- Not any particular dream, but maybe a combination of dreams and reality and past.

[both laughing] (Mike) '60s, by chance?

'60s.

This is how many buckets I melted last year.

(Mike) Al l the handles.

This is all the handles of the buckets I melted last year.

(Mike) Now, where are you getting your buckets?

(Hoskinson) Mayfield's Dairy gave me-- just gave me 200.

And then sheetrockers.

You know, I go to the job down here, and they'll fix me up with buckets.

I have to sit there and scrub out the plaster.

What I'm really trying to do with this plastic bucket is as much as I can, anything that comes to mind.

And I don't do over again too much.

I like moving on and then--you know, and just because there's just so much to do.

They light up.

They're hollow.

They light up.

And they make great night-lights.

Or you could actually just put a stronger light in there.

This is Boundaries, I call this, barbed wire and, you know.

He's got a ball and socket for his head.

You can put it anywhere you want.

This is--and this pulls the strings tight.

[twanging noise] [drumming] I wanted to be a Tennessee artist.

I didn't want just-- You know, I didn't want to be nobody else's artist.

I wanted to be a Tennessee artist.

I wanted to show people what's going on.

I have this urge.

I mean, I've taught myself a new art form which nobody else does, and I think it's important.

You know, I don't want to leave this world without somebody else carrying it on, you know, because it's too important to me, personally.

(Don) Yo u don't want to kick the bucket and-- When I kick the bucket, yeah.

(Don) Guess you could say Dan has a plan, a roadside stand, and a very cool bucket van.

But best of all, he knows how to treat a camera guy.

Ahh, that's great.

That's great.

You can drop that postcard anytime.

[blowing air] Now, on this or any road trip, tough decisions have to be made.

(Don) Can we go to Rock City?

For example, not enough time for this oddly automotive attraction.

And those producers are too cheap to see Rock City up there on Lookout Mountain.

(Don) Can we go to Rock City?

(Randy) Shut up back there.

(Don) So we're climbing nearby Signal Mountain instead, when all of a sudden... (Mike) Oh, my goodness; check it out.

(Randy) Pe ople of Earth.

It's a flying saucer house with a two-car carport.

(Mike) But what strange windows.

(Randy) Those are strange windows.

I don't know what the industry term for that kind of window is.

(Mike) "Small."

[both laughing] [diesel engine roars] (Randy) Well, at least they picked a tranquil, bucolic spot.

(Mike) That's what--yeah.

(Randy) Yeah.

Huh?

(Don) One thing's for certain: Up at the summit, Signal Mountain offers up some breathtaking views of the Tennessee Valley and some Civil War history too.

Who needs to see seven states when you've got this, whatever it is?

Anyway, upon our descent, we wound around, once again, down by Ocoee, driving over the hills and through the woods, emerging in northern Georgia somewhere near Morganton, newly established home base for one Ab Ivens, better known in grassroots art circles as Ab the Flag Man.

(Ivens) I lived around Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Ringgold, north Georgia, and out in Tennessee area, just outside of Alabama when I was a kid.

So I was raised as a ridge runner, you know, which means one of my legs is longer than the other.

I can only go one way around the mountain.

Now, this is the first time that I've been out in the country living since I was, like, seven or eight years old.

Before then, it was all suburbia and in town.

♪ Well, I'm headed down the interstate, ♪ ♪ roadside attractions on my mind.

♪ I had always had the art in my life, because they used to call me Abstract when I was a kid.

Now I'm Ab, you know.

You know, my mom got me pencils and pens when I was real young and art pads, and I was always-- I guess it was a way to keep me pacified.

Just kind of a fate thing, I guess.

♪ Well, I'm headed down the interstate, ♪ ♪ roadside attractions on my mind.

♪ When I was seven, my father passed away.

He was 57.

And my half-sister got the flag off the casket.

So it made a real big problem in my family.

And I remember it impacted me so much.

When she got the flag off the casket, I started collecting flags, all kinds of little flags, just whatever I could get with flags on them.

♪ Yeah, I stopped down in Georgia, ♪ ♪ see some friends of mine.

♪ One day I was--I don't know; guess I was about 23, 24 years old, and I was doing some carpentry for a friend of mine.

And I took some of the wood home, and I made a couple of flags to put in my house.

And I had them in the back of my car.

And he saw them, and he was paying me.

And he wouldn't let me go until I sold them to him.

And I had, like, four or five orders after that, you know, people wanting them.

And then this art dealer stepped in and bought a bunch of them from me.

And within a year, I was in several galleries.

I couldn't believe it.

Because I was working carpentry during the day, and then I was making flags at night and playing music.

I mean, I didn't have time for anything.

♪ Got the moon shining down on me.

♪ ♪ I got the moon shining down on me.

♪ I think when I first started, it was really about the curve and really about trying to get that curve going, you know.

And then after I worked with them for a while-- because I really wanted to get them to look like they were flying in the wind.

That was really important to me.

And before you know it, I started having these interesting, wild-looking, abstract flags that people were really going crazy over.

You know, a flag is a very powerful image.

Of course, since then, I've moved on to other patriotic symbols or iconery, you know, Statues of Liberties Liberty, Justice, you know, all the different presidents.

I do--some carvings I do that look more like the real subject itself, like on the $50 bill.

And then some I kind of interpret, you know, as feeling, and that's the ones I really like the best.

♪ I hope that sheriff don't catch up with me.

♪ ♪ ♪ I really like to preserve old pieces of wood, because, you know, trees are beautiful.

And I don't want to sound like a tree hugger, but I am.

And I love trees and I love wood, and I just-- When I was doing carpentry, I could not believe how much wood I threw away all the time, every day when I was doing renovation work.

So I started--that's one thing I like, is that I get to recycle it.

♪ So I got myself a real job ♪ ♪ and a part-time one too, ♪ ♪ so I could stay away from her ♪ ♪ and the crazy things that she'll do.

♪ (Don) As you can hear, when it comes to singing, Ab's not just dabbling.

His band, the X Miss Americas, has several CDs and a solid fan following.

So music and art are both in his future...

The famous ball.

(Don) Along with a close encounter with this icon of ours, which would seem to be a great way to end this show.

We're through for the day, aren't we?

But no such luck.

Next thing you know, we're doing some ridge running of our own, heading west towards East Ellijay, where some colonel named Poole, not Sanders, is making a north Georgia barbecue splash.

His Pig Hill of Fame is some kind of smoked swine sign shrine in the shape of a giant porker and may in fact be more than this non-carnivorous commentator can take.

(Randy) What, were you holding out for a vegetable hall of fame?

(Don) The boys can do what they want.

I'll just have some chips or something.

In fact, with one on my shoulder, this is 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 RareVisionsRoadtrip.com.

DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling 1-800-459-9733.

Captioning and audio description provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Captioning and audio description byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com [Don in adolescent voice] Fill 'er up, sir?

Oh, yeah, and check under the hood.

Something's making a bad noise.

It's kind of whining.

It's like a whiny noise.

(Don) That's coming from over there.

No, I think that's coming from the back somewhere.

(announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by Fred and Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of Kansas City Public Television, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.