Walking down Spring Road, keeping six feet between me and anybody passing by, I looked to my right, and I saw her. I thought
who
is
this
beautiful
creature?
Clearly she’s a scarecrow, although where are her crops? Where are the crows? Is she doing a good job? Why is she smiling that devilish, squiggly smile?
Her face reminds me of the vintage Strawberry Shortcake cartoon, where the little girl’s whirl of red hair peaks out from under a bonnet. The scarecrow’s face, like Strawberry Shortcake’s face, is simple, kind, vanilla, blank.
You can be of two minds on lawn decorations. Either you embrace the kitsch or you don’t. Either you delight in scarecrows, gnomes, ceramic frogs, plastic flamingos, blown glass orbs, or you don’t. I remember the contours of an argument when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, after my mom bought a carved stone turtle to “swim” along the path to our front door. My dad thought the turtle made no sense. For one thing, it was a sea turtle. We lived in Colorado. Where there is no sea. My mom thought logic was beside the point, and also, turtles are cute!!!
Though generally I am my father’s daughter, on this topic, I align with my mom. I’ll bypass your painted rocks with Bible verses or your plastic woodland animal figurines but I embrace, without hesitation, this rusted severed scarecrow head. Adding the four-fingered hand to dangle beside the disembodied head was inspired. (A memory that flew back when I typed “four-fingered”: my kindergarten teacher, Larry, had four fingers on one hand. He severed his thumb in a lawn mowing accident. He used the experience to teach the class about machine safety. This memory is half-formed and might be completely wrong, but it feels like truth.)
I love that somebody frankensteined this adorable monster. I tip my hat to that somebody. I tip my rusty metal sunhat to that somebody.