Author Archives: Chandler O'Leary

Retro Row

Manitou Springs has been a tourist attraction since the 1870s—first for its “medicinal” mineral springs, and then for its wild-west remnants and mountain location. For decades it’s been chock-a-block with midcentury motels and vintage neon—and by some miracle, nearly all of them are still around.

Every time I come back here, I run around town to do a sort of frantic inventory of these places, always amazed and relieved to find things more or less as I left them. These signs have been my old friends for over twenty years. I’m hoping against hope they’ll fare better than Giuffrida’s, and that there’s still a lot of life left in them.

Forest fossil

Millions of years ago, central Washington was a lush, dense forest (complete with prehistoric sasquatch-park-rangers, maybe?). The only evidence of it now are some petrified logs, a little museum—and this sign, looking a little fossilized itself.

Which, I have to say, is why I love it so much.

Red hots

Oh, sure. I love a fall full of pumpkins, bright gold trees, crisp air—all the usual stuff. But thanks to a few years spent living in southern Colorado, shiny-waxy-red chili ristras are also a sure sign of autumn in my mind. They’re not something you see around my neck of the woods, but a bright slash of red would go a long way toward keeping the grey pall of a Northwestern November at bay.

The last roundup

I couldn’t be here in person for this, and I haven’t actually eaten here since I was a kid. But Giuffrida’s has been a familiar (and completely incongruous) landmark on countless drives north of Boston over the years, and this is the first neon sign I ever loved. So when my dad told me it was closing after over fifty years, I dug out a blurry old photograph I had, and whipped up this sketch. It’s not the same as sketching the real thing, but I’m sorry to say it’s too late for that now. Apparently even the shiny fiberglass cows have been rounded up and carted off.

I have no idea what on earth a giant neon saguaro cactus and a ranch-themed restaurant was doing just ten miles from Bunker Hill. But I’m so glad it was there to be one of the first points of interest on my mental map.

Trick or treat

This is my favorite time of year—the air is crisp, the leaves are golden, there are pumpkins everywhere, and tomorrow is Halloween. And as the icing on the cake, today happens to be my birthday. (I can tell you, there are few things more delightful than getting to blow out candles in a Halloween costume every year…) Wishing you a day filled with fun tricks and tasty treats tomorrow—happy Halloween!

I see dead people

Okay, you’re going to think I’m a total weirdo for getting so excited over bunch of headstones (and I have many, many more sketches than these…), but since it’s Halloween this week, I figured I could get away with it. I have to tell you, I have a serious, major thing for colonial graveyards. My grandfather loved them, too. As a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool New England Yankee, he knew where all the good ones were. I used to take the train up from Providence and then drive him around three states (uh, about a thirty mile radius, ’round those parts…) in his car, while he showed me all the best, oldest, and weirdest headstones he could remember, in every little town and village. If you want a whole colony’s worth of specimens in one place, though, you can’t beat Boston. My two favorite burial grounds there are like little cities, in and of themselves.

But I’m not into 300-year-old headstones for any normal reason, like colonial history or possible genealogical discoveries (though I’m not knockin’ that stuff). I love them because they’re literally monuments to early graphic design. Great typography? Check. Graphic symbolism? Heck, yeah. Amazingly inventive, refined and creepy illustration? In spades.

(Sorry. I can’t resist a grave-digging pun—not this close to Halloween.)

Pumpkin-mobile

This had me laughing for days afterward. And now I can never look at a VW Bug in quite the same way.

Tea for two

Speaking of Canadian fall color, almost exactly two years ago I had the chance to stay at Victoria’s Empress Hotel, and see its climbing ivy in all its autumn glory. Both then and just recently, when the Tailor and I visited Victoria together, a major highlight of the visit was the Empress’s world-famous High Tea.

If dainty delicacies aren’t your thing, or you’d rather chug a thermos of coffee than sip tea out of bone china—well, I’d suggest spending your afternoon elsewhere. But for the Tailor and me, there was nothing cozier.

(And besides, the curry sandwiches are to die for.)

Celtic Colours

Well, okay, my visit missed the actual Celtic Colours music festival by a couple of days (sad but true). But even a short two days on Cape Breton gave me a nice taste of the Celtic heritage of the island—

—as well as a panorama of stunning autumn color, absolutely everywhere I looked.

If that’s not a good consolation prize, I don’t know what is.

Tourist (lobster) trap

No trip to the Maritimes is complete without a good lobster meal (or two, or three…). And a pound of fresh lobster looks mighty impressive on a plate—good drawing and good eating.

Now, a fifteen-foot, fifty-ton roadside lobster statue?

That’s something I could sink my teeth into.