MONUMENT TO THE ELM

I try to stop by the recycling bins at least every couple of days to look for neat paper/magazines and whatever else I might find to use for artwork and collages. The other day I found some lady's scrapbook from the 80's and I spent the day going through it. One of the things I found was a brochure about the "Monument to the Elm" and how the city of Cedar Falls was trying to raise money to restore it. I thought it was interesting because I remember seeing it all the time when I was young and watching it deteriorate over the years. Towards the end of the original monument it was kind of a joke because vandals cut off all but the middle finger on one or both of the hands and we always thought it was funny. As a kid I always assumed it was supposed to be Jesus but after reading through the brochure and investigating further online I found out I was wrong. I thought I'd post the info I found. Here's the brochure.









This was printed in an attempt to raise money for the restoration but according to the internet they never got enough to fund the proposal.

Here's a little back story beginning with the creation of the sculpture.

The sculpture was titled "Monument to the Elm" but commonly known as "The Treeman" and was designed and carved by John Faust a University of Northern Iowa art major. Faust and his assistants began work on the elm tree in the spring of 1974. The work was completed by that summer.





Faust received three hours credit from the Independent Studies Program for his work on the sculpture. Also, he and his wife, Chris, were allowed to stay at the Lutheran Center while he was working on the project. Faust carved the sculpture out of a 125-year-old elm tree that succumbed to Dutch elm disease. The tree was trimmed and shortened until only a twenty-three foot stump and two branches remained. The sculptor shortened the stump three feet before beginning his work. Out of the trunk and branches, Faust carved a grieving man with his arms outstretched. The base of the sculpture was the original tree stump. The project came about from the Lutheran Center's Reverend John Deines's interest in preserving the 125-year-old tree. The Reverend Deines contacted Faust through the Department of Art. Faust intended the work to be a reminder of the devastating effects of Dutch elm disease.

RESTORATION PROJECT

It was the artist's intention that "The Monument to the Elm" should be allowed to decay naturally, as a statement of death and dying. However, fungus infected the tree causing it to decay rapidly. The natural effects of weathering had caused the wood to split and woodpeckers had successfully pecked two holes in its chest. By 1981, the base was also deteriorating, creating a safety hazard. These conditions prompted the Save the Elm fundraiser, which aimed to raise money to have the elm chemically treated for preservation. Around $20,000 was needed to complete the restoration. Not enough money was raised, however, so the "Monument to the Elm" was taken down in September 1981. Two years later extensive donations brought the elm back. The sculpture's interior had been coated with epoxy, resin, and fiberglass. Also, a new cement base was used rather than the original tree stump. The work was reinstalled after the homecoming parade on October 8, 1983.



THE REMOVAL

By 1994, the tree was showing the effects of thirteen years of decay. Plans were made to replace it with a new sculpture. In May 1995, "Monument to the Elm" was removed and replaced by "Triumph over Tragedy."



I'll post a photo in a later blog showing what the area looks like now, but I thought it was a neat story and part of my memories of growing up in Cedar Falls.

THE HILLCREST DRIVE-IN THEATER

Some day when I get a good chunk of money I'm going to build a Drive-in Theater.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a town where we had two of them. The "Starlight" and the "Hillcrest" two of the last drive-in theaters in Iowa.

The Starlight was located on University Ave. which is the main strip in town. This is where I saw my first movie "The Muppet Movie" with my parents. I can remember heading home on summer evenings as a kid and driving by the Starlight and looking up at the big screen to see what was playing. Sometimes dad would cruise by slow and tune the radio in so we could hear the audio.
The Starlight closed when I was in Jr. High and they built a Hy-Vee grocery store in its place. If you go in the food court of the grocery store they have a little shrine dedicated to it and some of the old advertisements and tickets and one of the speakers that you hooked onto your car window on the original pole (I'll have to get a photo of that).
Just outside the west end of town off the university campus was the second drive-in the "Hillcrest". This one was just far enough out that you'd get a nice purple summertime sunset just as the "three stooges" shorts would start up. Nothing was better than seeing if you could stay up for all three movies under the stars and being one of those last five cars to turn on the headlights and drive out as the credits rolled down that giant screen.
I remember taking my wife out on dates and driving home with her sleeping next to me curled up in a blanket. We still laugh about how crazy we were crawling into the back seat and fogging up the windows and hearing people laugh as they walked past our car to the snack bar.

I remember once when my mom made me go along with my sister Linda on her date to chaperon and trying not to laugh from the backseat watching her date try and scoot in closer and get up the nerve to put his arm around her.
Once I bought this beat up car from a guy for 200 dollars and it was a stick shift so I spent all afternoon trying to learn how to drive it so I could take it to the drive-in that evening. I drove up and down Main St. stalling it over and over with cars honking and people flipping me the bird. I never got the swing of it but got it to the drive-in that night anyway. It was a tiny little car and it had been in a bad accident with a deer so the hood was entirely caved in. I parked it backward and opened up the hatchback and laid down the backseat so we could watch the movie out the back. At the end of the night I barely got the car home and it died in the driveway behind my mom's house where it stayed for over a year. I always thought that was funny how I bought that piece of shit car and it only lasted one lovely summer day. Later on that summer I got in a big fight with my parents and I ran away from home for about two weeks I thought I could sleep outdoors but after a few nights under bushes I remembered that hatchback and went to sleeping in that car. One night I remember real well my friend Caruso slept in there with me and it was one of those hot sweaty dog days in July it had to be 110 degrees in there we tossed and turned all night trying to sleep.
When I turned 18 I moved into my first apartment at this place called Gold Falls Villa with two guys that had a roommate moving out. Our apartment was on the third floor and had a balcony on the west side. The first night I stayed there I found out you could see the screen of Hillcrest out in the country a ways so I would sit out there and watch with binoculars. I didn't have a car at that time and was used to walking back and forth to work everything. One night I got an urge to walk out to the Hillcrest and it was a beautiful night so I walked about half a mile down the highway to the drive-in and walked in the exit (it was surrounded by a tall wooden wall/fence) and I laid down in the grass in front of the screen and watched the movie. I went to the snack bar and got a hot dog and stuff and nobody seemed to notice. I had so much fun doing it that night that I kept doing it over and over again all summer. I must have seen the X-files movie a dozen times.

One night I had a get together at my apartment and I convinced about ten people to walk over there with me and lay in the grass and watch the movie. So we all walked down the road and as we got closer more people chickened out and headed back to the apartment until there were only four of us left (Eric Starret, Sara Stanbough, Adam Weir, and Brian Potter) I still remember, We snuck in the back entrance during one of the dark scenes when there was barely any light and ran along the fence one by one till we were all in there. We met by the bathrooms at the snack bar and got burgers and hot dogs. Then we all laid in the grass in front of the screen and put our heads on each others chest like pillows. We had to give all the others a hard time later for not having enough guts to do it.

I decided I wanted to work at the Hillcrest so I went there one afternoon and had an interview with the owner in the back of the snack bar. He showed me around and took me on a little tour which included the projection booth and everything. One of my favorite parts of going to the drive-in was those retro shorts they show before and between the movies. They have like ten minutes till showtime with french fries dancing around and jumping into the fry vat, kittens and flowers and long shots from a plane flying over the mountains set to music from the sixties. The guy showed me all those film reels and how they load them and stuff. The Drive-in was too far into the season to hire any new employees but he had told me that he would keep my application on file and get in touch with me the next summer when they reopened. I never ended up working there but it sure would have been fun.
One afternoon my friend Caruso and Eric and I went in there when it was closed and took a bunch of pictures but only a couple came out.

Here's a photo of Caruso and I holding the speakers up to our ears.


This is a picture of Eric and I climbing up the drive-in screen. You can barely see us.

The Hillcrest closed down for good in 2000 and everyone in town seemed to make it a point to go out for one last starry night before it would be gone for good. A developer had made an offer to purchase the land to build college apartments and the owner sold it and it was torn down. Ironically the final movie that was shown there was "Gone in 60 Seconds"




I took one final trip out there to snap some photos after they had torn down everything but the ticket booth near the gravel entrance and saw the funky 50's looking metal hood that was the roof of the ticket booth laying in the gravel to be hauled away.

I'm sure it's obvious that the Drive-in was a sentimental place for me and won't find it hard to believe that I still get teary-eyed when I think about it. I guess the thing that bugs me the most is that those days are gone and the drive-in theater is a thing of the past. I

GARBAGE PAIL KIDS TRADING CARDS

My favorite thing to collect Is Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. For those of you who have never heard of these I'll give you a quick history...
Back in good ol' 1985 when Cabbage Patch Kid dolls were a serious craze, Topps trading cards began selling the most wonderful set of new cards spoofing the dolls called "Garbage Pail Kids" or GPK's. Each amazingly illustrated card portrayed one of the "kids" doing something repulsive or strange. Most of the cards primarily dealt with some sort of gag revolving around snot, barf, decapitation, or anything disgusting. If you ask me they were way ahead of their time.
The first series of 41 different cards was released in 1985 and each card had an a and a b card with two separate names totaling 82 cards in the first set.





At the time they came out I was in third grade and as soon as the first cards started hitting the playground we were all hooked. Across the street from the school in Cedar Falls was this little grocery store called Lewellen's Grocery and they had this big candy counter where old man Lewellen and his wife would be waiting after school got out. Our parents would always give us 50 cents and you could stand in line with the other kids and get a bag of penny candy. At that time a pack of 5 Garbage Pail Kids that came with a stick of gum cost a quarter so we all stopped buying candy and started collecting these awesome cards. The cards were also stickers which was good and bad because a lot of kids ended up sticking them all over the place or getting them confiscated by teachers. Soon how popular you were on the playground had a lot to do with how big of a stack of cards you had in your fist.





The Garbage Pail Kids cards were so popular that additional series continued going up to series 15 in 1988. There were a total of 1240 cards to collect in the 1-15 series.
As the series progressed Topps got sued by the creators of Cabbage Patch Kids a few times but made slight changes in the logo or character models so they could continue.

A lot of 80's kids lost our old cards or stuck them on our bedposts and closet doors over the years or may not have continued collecting or even being able to find the cards eventually. I remember our school principal had a drawer in his office loaded with cards confiscated at school and at one point they had to send a note home to parents warning them about nasty trading cards.

About ten years ago I started building up a collection of cards from scratch when I was in High School and it was so much fun seeing those familiar images. I started out by just asking people if they kept any of them around and surprisingly enough boys and girls had shoeboxes full of them they had saved as a kid and were kind enough to donate or sell them to me. Now I'm old enough not only to get a real kick out of the humor, but also appreciate the artwork.

So over time I built up my collection of the original cards as a hobby, and then something really neat happened. In 2003 Topps released a new series of Garbage Pail Kids for all of us big kids and a new generation of children to corrupt. So now we can collect the new ones while going back and filling in our old collections. Fun, fun, fun. The new cards referred to as "ANS" cards are currently on the seventh series and are sold at stores like Target or Walmart with the rest of the trading cards. The original cards have gained quite a bit of value over the years and are highly collectible.

Garbage Pail Kids cards will most definitely a topic of future blogging but that's all for now.