Whisked: Part II...see, I promised.

Hello, all! I am in a surprisingly good mood for a Monday...but dammit, let there be happiness. Before I tell you why I am in such a cheery mood, I wanted to followup with my last post and tell you about our visit with THE MT Liggett.

Now, this visit to Mr. MT was during the time my dad and Aunti Wen came out for a visit. Just so we all know. If you clicked on the link above, you will see that MT is a very unique character for the area...or really any area. I had never seen the man in the flesh, I had only heard stories...some good, some bad, and some really really ugly.

He lives in Mullinville, KS, which is about 10 miles West of Greensburg. You know that you have reached his place when you see a fence lined with obscure art for about a mile down the road. So obscure in fact, you just HAVE to get a closer look. So we did. On a very windy March day--tumbleweeds flying 10 feet in the air--the three of us went to visit MT Liggett.

As we got out of our car, unsure if we'd get to see the legendary character, a little brown truck emerged from the brush. A hunched-over elderly man with man-sized overalls on flicked his wrist in a 'come hither' motion, enticing us over to the vehicle. IT WAS MT LIGGETT. In his scruffily tone, he said "look around, I don't care. Be sure to look at the world's largest mug collection." An odd and welcoming invitation it was, but we made our way around the property. We had managed to see the world's largest mug collection (more of a hoarding obsession, but it was a record of some kind) and model with some of his most controversial pieces.

When we were making our rounds through the 'art', we saw the little brown truck pull back into the property. A very tall MT came walking towards us asking our names, occupations, and if we'd help clean up some of his tumbleweeds. By clean up, I mean throwing them out towards traffic. But anyways, one art piece that we saw all over his property were metal hearts with names on them. Interesting enough, they were all female names? Hmm. MT asked if we came across a heart with our names on in (he wasn't talking to dad when he said this). I didn't see any with my name on it...so he said he'd make me one. He started his torch without warning, sparks flying, and J-A-N-A was soon on my very own heart. He said he'd deliver it himself to GreenTown...haven't seen it yet...but I hope he remembers to drop it off.

Amongst this art-fest and cultural experience...one of the funniest moments of my life happened. In between torching things and tumbleweed clean-up, MT had to 'excuse himself'. Now, we thought he was just tired of talking to us, but actually, he went around the corner and peed on a furnace...IN his shop. It was one of the strangest moments of my life, but I felt so happy to share it with two of my favorite people...they were also there as witnesses, so I'm mostly grateful for that. MT Liggett took three unphasable people and managed to get us all a little uncomfortable and side-splitting hysterical. The drive back to the 'burg was us basically saying, (G-rated) "did that all really happen?" (R-rated) "what the fuck just happened?"I hope the following pictures paint some kind of picture for you...but it really was a 'had to be there' moment. And fortunately, a tumble weed didn't take us all out and we lived to tell the tale! Enjoy!