(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.

♪ ♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, where's a cop when you need one?

Hi, Don, the camera guy here, watching as those two producers with whom I travel strain in vain on Zanesville's main claim to fame, where you can actually tell someone, "Go to the middle of the bridge, and turn left."

[imitating Robert Kennedy] Some people see bridges and ask, "Why?"

I see bridges and ask, "Why not?"

(Don) At any rate, this new day finds us taking lefts and rights on the back roads of America, as always, in search of the odd and amazing, with the world's largest ball of videotape in tow.

And as always, when it comes to where or why we're going, I'm the last to know, though I think this could be Cambridge, hometown of Hopalong Cassidy, or at least the actor who portrayed him.

(Mike) Hey, the Cambridge Glass Museum, we're passing it right by.

(Randy) Nope, not gonna go there.

(Mike) Aw, come on.

(Randy) We're not gonna go to the Paperweight Museum either.

That's here too.

That's here, and we're not g-- the Paperweight Museum?

We're not gonna see that?

If we're not gonna do the Paperweight Museum and we're not gonna do the Glass Museum-- we just blew right past that.

We did.

Hopalong Cassidy.

What--and Hopalong Cassidy-- we're right here, and I'm sure there's a museum that we're not stopping at.

Right.

It's back there.

Well, then what are we gonna do?

We're going to Dover.

Dover.

Look it up in the book there.

It's the Warther Carvings Museum.

Dover--oh, look at that.

Uh-huh.

(Mike) Oh.

(Randy) Ye ah.

I see why that gets your attention.

Look at that guy.

(Don) So you see, that's how decisions are made.

Dover is our destination, more precisely, this charming piece of ground, but that doesn't mean we won't get distracted along the way.

(Randy) Mi nd if we watch?

No.

(Randy) We were trying to shoot ou t our windshield, and it's incredibly dirty.

And we saw you do ing this-- And you come in here to get yours done.

(Randy) We ll, yeah.

[chortles] I would've thought you'd have something better to find than some silly coach driver washing windows.

(Don) You haven't seen our show.

[guffawing] (Randy) Well, can--maybe Mike can just borrow your squeezer.

First lesson right off the bat.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

[chuckles] (Randy) He 's keeping a close eye on you.

How am I doing?

Just excellent.

(Don) Hey, that's my leg.

(Mike) So rry, buddy.

Oh , man.

(Don) TV Weasels have no shame, but at least our windows are clean.

Thank you very much, very much.

(Don) Now we can focus on the matter at hand, the matter of Mooney, Ernest "Mooney" Warther, that is: second grade graduate, steel miller, big-time fan of Honest Abe, knife maker extraordinaire, and--whew!-- carver of the most amazing things one man has ever refused to sell.

(Mark) He learned from the history books when he was a kid how carvings had been found in the tombs of Egypt, thousands of years old, still in perfect shape, and what were they made out of?

Ebony wood and ivory.

So he knew from early on what he wanted to use.

Just couldn't afford that till he was in his 40s.

Started off with walnut, a local hardwood he'd get for free from local farmers and sawmills.

And when my grandmother made beef vegetable soup, he received the bone instead of the dog.

And all the white trim on his very early trains was all carved from beef bones.

(Randy) Th at's quite a photo there.

(Mike) Yeah, he's quite a character looking there.

Yes, in fact, I'm that age that he is right there in that picture.

And that's why my wife makes me keep my hair short.

He always said God gave him a choice: hair or brains.

And so he took hair.

To him, the steam engine was the greatest invention of all time.

It sparked the Industrial Revolution.

It helped build America to what it is today.

And he loved mechanics.

What had more mechanics than a steam engine?

But when he was 28, he set a lifetime goal-- and he was a goal setter supreme-- and that goal was to carve the history of the steam engine.

These carvings are mechanically accurate down to every nut and bolt.

Air hoses-- the valves on those air hoses actually open and close.

The bells swing.

Couplers work.

Your pistons are timed with driving arms and fly rods.

Inspected by railroad engineers over the years.

They cannot find anything missing or anything out of scale.

This is actually one of his last carvings.

He finished this at the age of 80.

It's all carved of ebony and ivory.

And the amazing part of the carving is the funeral coach itself.

The details of Lincoln lying in his coffin, tables, chairs, sinks, teakettles.

It's just amazing, the accuracy that he was carving to when he was 80 years old.

This is a carving of the steel mill that he worked in.

And when he was older, he wanted to show people what he did when he was young.

At the age of 67, he carved this plant, all carved of ivory and walnut.

This was just a nine-month project, which includes the mechanics.

Then he carved his buddies, their good habits, their bad.

The chief engineer took a lot of catnaps.

There's the boss waking him, pounding his fists.

The pliers tree took a block of walnut that size and shape, placed 31,000 cuts into it, and it opened to 511.

And that's what you see here in the tower.

He often referred to that carving as his most worthless.

And this was just pliers.

To him, carving had a purpose, and that's why he next carved the history of the steam engine.

(Mike) I love this shot of the root.

What's the significance of the root?

(Warther) That's a tree stump that was found out here in Amish country.

He was trying to find a piece of wood large enough to carve this engine.

Finally found that right stump.

Dug the stump out.

And a year later, that tree stump had turned into that carving.

(Randy) Is that movie The Right Stump?

(Mike) Yeah.

(Warther) I'm very fortunate to be able to do what I'm doing today, to grow up with this, and when you're younger, you don't think anything of it.

You just think that's normal for your granddad to be sitting in a shop carving his priceless trains, which you don't think are priceless at that age, but as you get older, you certainly start appreciating.

People wonder why this collection is not in the Smithsonian.

The man behind the carvings would be lost.

Here you can see how they lived, how they did this, and why, and that's what our displays are all about: the man behind it.

(Don) Best make that man and woman, since Mooney's missus also left a barn full of buttons, a vast array that's been artfully arranged for your inspection.

Plus, there's world-class knives still being made on the premises, a gift shop, and gorgeous gardens.

And before you know it, you're running late, which of course, we are.

After pondering the possibilities of our complimentary pliers, we hop back in the van to resume racking up more spine-numbing miles.

And there we are, just about out of Ohio, when Mike says, "Did you see that?"

Then Randy says, "I think so," which is code for, "Don, get the camera and see why Rock City rocks on."

But not this time.

Seems that the guy who's made all this stuff would rather spend his time making it than telling us about it.

So it will remain a mystery, which means we're back in the van again, winding through a wee bit of West Virginia, then dipping into the Quaker State, which reminds me of an urgent need to put the P back in Pennsylvania.

[chuckling] (Don) And wouldn't you know, the first facilities we find would be right next to a strikin' likeness of Canonsburg's favorite son.

(Randy) Repeat after me: como.

(Don) Como.

Como, like.

Como.

Como.

Like Perry.

You know, I always thought he was bigger than this.

Doesn't he have a really flat butt?

Hey, young man, is Perry Como from here?

(boy) I don't know.

Okay.

He's young.

Youth of America-- that's what's wrong with the youth of America right there.

He doesn't know, you see?

(Mike) Look, these kids know Perry Como.

You kids know Perry Como, don't ya?

(boy) What?

(Mike) You know Perry Como, don't ya?

Yeah.

We do.

(boy) My dad hooked up the speakers.

(Mike) His dad hooked the speaker up.

(Como) ♪ Just when everything looked so right-- ♪ ♪ (Don) Talk about your brush with greatness.

What could we do but brush ourselves off and keep driving to Pittsburgh?

Or more accurately, all the way across it to Swissvale, where Karl Mullen, who's definitely not Swiss, is busy making music, art, and a fine cup of tea.

(Karl) I came for a week 20 years ago.

I got lost, lost in America, lost in Pittsburgh.

(Randy) Di d you start making these, th ough, as instruments or just as planks?

I started painting them as planks, and then I've always made homemade instruments.

I even made boxes.

Besides the music that I play, I do music for any opportunity I get, and I've made music for theater companies and dance companies.

And I particularly like homemade instruments that have a kind of unique sound to them.

[strings twanging] I usually use the word painter, not artist.

And--'cause I was a house painter as well, and it's an honorable profession.

But I like to paint a lot on found materials.

These are obviously old bits of tile.

And roofing slate that I particularly like 'cause they're Pittsburgh, so they've got, like, 50 years of grime on them.

I found this great piece over here.

It's from a men's urinal.

There's even some graffiti still on it, like "Meet me here later" or something like that it says on it.

[bluesy twanging] As a self-taught artist, I was drawn more to materials that I was familiar with.

I'm familiar with a bit of wood or an old window much more than I am by some-- by a precious art object that you need years and years of training to work with or something.

♪ ♪ I paint with tea.

It's a form of watercolor painting.

Besides the kings, as you probably noticed, I like doing animals.

It's nice to do a bunch of them, and you let them dry, and they dry very nicely.

♪ ♪ ♪ Runnin' down the street, ♪ ♪ I got a suitcase in my hand.

♪ ♪ I'm headed for the horizon as fast as I can.

♪ I've not been to much school.

I don't have a history of doing very well with school.

I'm better off left to my own-- inventing my own things.

And I've tended to have done that since an early age, and so I kind of invent my own world, whether it's with music or with art materials.

The wax medium that I'm using actually is supposed to be heated up apparently.

I just put my hands in it and paint with my hands.

This is walnut oil, raw pigment, and charcoal in this series.

I like incorporating accidents 'cause it-- to some extent, it's an accident that I'm even doing them.

But I'd put a bit of cardboard underneath, and all of a sudden, the ridges in the cardboard came out.

I do lots of Irish beasts.

(Don) And an Irish queen?

An Irish queen.

(Don) And the three wise men.

(Mullen) Or the three musicians.

I paint them on the floor.

And I mix everything with my hands.

And again, lots of handprints.

I use both hands.

It's a physical-- it's a very sweaty, energetic way to paint.

♪ ♪ [trilling] ♪ Yah-hah!

♪ I guess my work isn't really about theory about that.

I don't have a theory.

I really don't.

(Randy) And you don't have to, not on our show.

Okay, good, 'cause I was worried.

♪ When I'm slowly-- ♪ I can only do what I do.

I don't sing songs by anybody else.

I don't even know a single song by anybody.

So for me, it's important that it's honest.

And the best way for me to do that is that I stay within myself to some extent.

I like that authentic experience, whether it's the playing the music or me on the porch with a cup of tea in the morning, the neighbors asleep, making a picture.

You know, it's-- it's got to be-- it's got to have that authentic feel to it.

♪ Just like the first time I met you.

♪ ♪ ♪ [trilling] ♪ Yah-hah!

♪ ♪ (Don) Okay, here's how a new day begins: with Pittsburgh's clogged arteries and the boys trying to navigate them or trying to decide where they need to be navigated.

And the answer is Wilmerding, one of those factory towns for which this area's famous.

And waiting for us there will be one Kathleen Ferri, formerly of Turtle Creek and formerly not an artist... until, at age 58, she took a painting class that changed her life.

(Kathleen) They had--senior citizens-- they had this craft class.

Everyone did something different.

So anyhow, we were supposed to do a heritage theme, so my husband had the grocery store, and I thought, "Well, that store is my kids' heritage."

So I did the store.

And I thought, "Well, why don't I just do the whole town while it's still in my head?"

So I did the whole town, and if you go through here, every store, at that time, was they way I remember it in the '40s.

And someone said, "How do you remember the town so well?"

I said, "I don't remember names or phone numbers today, but I remember things like that."

I didn't dream I would be doing this.

But my husband happened to die the first year I started to paint.

And when I couldn't sleep at night, I'd get up, and I didn't feel like reading, and I thought, "You know, I didn't like the way I did that sky," so I'd go back and, you know, and do it again.

Next thing you know, I'd hear the birds singing.

I thought, "I thought it was 3:00, but I didn't know it was 6:00 already."

So that is really how I got started on this, and it's been so satisfying.

And a lot of people want to come in to see them, and I welcome people to come in to see them.

It does my heart good to get a couple compliments once in a while, you know?

So I've done every town around here: Pitcairn, Wilmerding, Turtle Creek, East Pittsburgh, North Braddock, Braddock, McKeesport, and a couple of Pittsburgh.

There used to be a swimming pool in the park.

And there was a bandstand here.

And I have soldiers and sailors in every picture, and that way, you can tell how old I am.

But over the hill is the steel mills and the Westinghouse and the bridges and the hills.

Most of them are smoky and dark.

And the one, I have a red sky.

And a kid come in here, and he looked at it-- "How come you have red in the sky?"

I said, "Because we"--he said, "You didn't have red skies."

I says, "Yes, we did."

And on the other hand, we had streetlights on in the daytime 'cause it was dirty.

Pittsburgh had its reputation of being dirty, and the streetlights would be on in the daytime.

But it's not 100% accurate.

It's just whatever comes into my head's what I use.

I did things the way they used to be to begin with, but then I decided they're going to tear our town apart again, so I thought I'd better paint it the way it is now, and that's why-- it's these two pictures behind me here above the couch.

That's how it is right now.

This looks like a museum, doesn't it?

[chuckling] I do have people begging to buy these, and I don't want to sell them.

You know what?

They're like my babies.

They take me so long to produce them.

I don't do them in a half an hour like the guy on television.

And when they take me four months or so to do it, well, it seems like I had a baby, and I just can't part with them.

So I might not leave a fortune to my kids, but I'll leave the pictures, and I have people waiting to buy them.

(Don) Kathleen's paintings have made her something of a celebrity here.

She even had her picture on the front page, but they misspelled her name, something I'm pretty sure we won't do.

Then again, no other reporters would have done this.

Ooh, long time since I had one of those!

[chuckles] (Don) And thus begins another long stretch of Chrysler confinement, miles and miles of turnpike drivin', whizzing past exits for Johnstown and Altoona, but not for Bedford, since, once again, Randy proves he can't resist the lure of anything that has a coffeepot shape.

Whoa, there it is.

There it is.

Whoo.

(Randy) Okay, it's a little worse for wear.

So once this was a great landmark on the Lincoln Highway.

You like the Lincoln Highway, don't you?

(Don) Is this it?

(Randy) This is Lincoln Highway.

People from the East Coast-- really, it was like the main road, wasn't it?

It was the main road from New York to San Francisco.

Really?

Yeah.

You knew this?

Yeah.

(Don) That's--that's some major disrepair there.

(Randy) Yeah, and don't cut yourself on, like, that nail and get tetanus.

You know, we'd have to take you to--to the Lincoln Hospital.

(Don) Well, look at that spout, though.

That spout's still in pretty good shape.

That was a stout spout.

(Randy) Ok ay, it's the big coffeepot in Bedford.

Mike--you know the Hershey folks who were just down the way?

Yeah, went on over to the Hershey folks.

I spilled that chocolate you dumped out of the bag on my-- (Don) There's more over here.

First one of the trip.

(Don) Let's just hope it's not the last.

But at this point, all we can do is jump back in the van, drive through more rain, more tunnels, behind vehicles that seem disturbingly confused, and through more rain, which finally began to abate as we reached Shartlesville.

Now, on the outside, this appears to be just another moderately priced overnight accommodation, but this particular Budget Inn offers, at no extra charge, rooms with a theme.

So naturally, this old coot was assigned to the Wild West room.

♪ Blacksmith singin' in the dead of night.

♪ ♪ There's the bank.

Probably some change in that sofa.

Let's hope we don't go there.

We should be on the next stage into town.

(Don) One producer chose to bungle in the jungle.

[Randy humming] Nothing like some wood-paneled trees.

[foot rubbing] Can you feel that?

You feel the texture?

A canopy of green... above my bed.

(Don) While producer number two eagerly embraced the animal kingdom in Noah's Ark.

[Mike clucking] [Mike hissing] [Mike trumpeting] Oh, that's so romantic.

Zebra rump.

Oh, excuse me.

Oh.

Oh, don't rock the boat, baby.

[clattering noises] (Don) You get the idea.

It's a lodging adventure.

But before it gets any more adventurous, I say lights out.

Good night, campers.

[toilet flushes] [horses chuffing] [water dripping] All right, here's the good news: everyone's room was fine.

Now for a warning: if bad backing offends you, look away now.

It will likely take Randy as long to get out of the lot as it will to reach our next stop, which is just at the other end of this service road.

And it is Roadside America.

No, not the website from which we, uh, borrow so often, but the granddaddy of all tiny towns ever made, built as a hobby by a Reading man named Lawrence Gieringer and operated to this day by his daughter Alberta.

[Mike and Randy chuckling] (Mike) Whoa.

See more than you expect.

There's no doubt about it.

(Randy) Wow.

I'm--I'm astundicated.

I'm having de pth perception problems here.

Is it, like, two miles across this thing or what?

(Mike) It feels like it, doesn't it?

(Randy) Yeah.

(Alberta) I think of my daddy so much.

I wished he was living-- my mom and daddy-- that they could see it's still here.

And you know what I like?

When I sit there and have them open the door for the first time and see it, I get more wows-- [chuckles] than you can believe.

Look, look!

I'm runnin' the train.

(Don) With your finger?

I'm running the train.

See?

Off.

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

On.

There he goes around the curve.

(Don) Are you running that train?

(Mike) Stop.

Start.

Stop.

Start.

Stop.

Start.

Whoo!

Oh, crossing.

Wait for the car.

Oh, yeah.

Ohhhh.

(Alberta) When you come in, the houses are like in the '40s.

And then as you go around, it goes back 200 years.

(Randy) So he had a plan on that?

(Alberta) Oh, yeah, when he had it in his mind, he had it in his mind, and he'd talk about it, but nobody, you know, understood.

(Randy) I think you're right.

I think those are pliers, a field of them.

(Don) A field of pliers.

(Randy) And back there are some men harvesting big mushrooms.

You know, he did all this years ago.

It's, like, frozen in time.

(Mike) It's like if you stood on one side of the country and could see all the way across.

This is what you'd see.

(Don) What'd you see first?

(Randy) That sign right there?

"Digging a new cesspool in the yard."

(Don) Hey, I can dig it.

(Alberta) If you take notice in the modern village, every siding is different.

Chimneys are different.

Roofing is different.

And every house is completely different.

(Randy) Oh, look, there's a man flying a surfboard.

(Mike) Where?

(Alberta) It's a lot of time consumed in there, but it was all as a hobby.

You just never saw him out.

(Don) There's the trolley.

That is one fast-moving trolley.

(Randy) Look what's playing at the theater.

(Mike) Boys' Town?

(Randy) Yeah.

(Don) That's Chief No Running at Anytime.

Does anybody feel the need to go to the bathroom?

(Mike) Ye ah, all this running water.

(Alberta) People don't believe it until--you must see it.

I tell people all the time, "You must see it to believe it."

(Don) And like the sign says, you must see the spectacle of night falling over America, complete with Kate Smith singing up a storm, which we'd like to play, but then we'd have to pay for the rights, so use your imagination.

But there's no guessing about the gift shop.

It's stocked to the gills with goodies which Alberta's handing out happily.

As a TV Weasel, I'm in heaven right now.

You are?

Okay.

I got a mug.

You know what?

That shines in the dark.

(Don) Prompting, in turn, some quick show-and-tell of our own.

This is the world's largest ball of videotape.

Oh, my God.

Of videotape.

(Don) Leaves 'em speechless every time.

And speaking of time, there's just enough left to annoy that part of the viewing public that hates to see us play catch.

Alberta's king with me.

(Don) So out come the gloves, a ball, and what will have to pass for witty repartee.

I saw way more than I expected.

I learned things.

I feel growth, and we got free stuff.

Oh, don't hit the fork.

Oh, up against the wall.

(Don) Hey, no interfering with balls on play.

No leaning over.

You'll get ejected.

(Don) From the side of the road at Roadside America, this is Don, the camera guy, signing off.

Ho!

(Don) Di d it have so me mojo on it?

Had some mojo.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights you've seen on this show and plan a road trip of your own, visit Rare Visions on the web at: You can also purchase DVDs, videotapes, and a companion book to this award-winning series.

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

Captioning and audio description byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com [distorted twanging] ♪ ♪ What happened to our old "Let's stop and get off the highways"?

We used to be so good at this.

(Don) You've become your fathers.

God.

(Randy) That works.

That's good.

(Mike) Th at was painless, wa sn't it?

It was as long as I didn't look at him.

(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.