Tat’s Bizarre Travels

Uniontown, PA - I’m really beginning to dig the muffler men. They’re an easy attraction to spot, which is just fantastic. All you have to do is turn a bend that there they are, larger than life and with a steely grin. This time the muffler man I sought stood guard at a tire store. Seems kinka apropos…too bad they weren’t a muffler shop.

The Paul Bunyan style giant hangs out in front of Import Export Tire and is dressed in a burly red and blue. It doesn’t appear to phase the tire guys that there’s somebody outside snapping pictures, they just continue on with their work. I don’t think they’re rude, just used to it. I imagine they get that everyday.

The best part of the tire shop is the sign above the office door:

The Men Who Know Tires Best

I’m fairly certain that the muffler man knows tires best of all.

Meadville, PA - My first stop this weekend was Read Between the Signs (better known as the PennDOT mural), a fantastic and exciting display of environmental art. The mural is really hundreds of road signs expertly lashed to the cyclone fence that separates the the highway from the PennDOT backyard. From what I can tell, it depicts the different parts of Pennsylvania, from the rolling hills to the snow covered mountaintops hilltops. It’s a visual representation of a John Denver song, only much, much, much, better.

When I first read that PennDOT had a “sculpture garden” of flowers made out of street signs, I knew I was in. Little did I know what it had blossomed into. In fact the flowers, impressive though they are at an average height of 6′ tall, are secondary to the mural itself.

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