B4 RECYCLING

POPPY'S BARN

In the days before recycling was a buzzword, my father-in-law built a barn on his 22 acres with used billboards.

This would be about 50 years ago. It still stands and looks great in its barn red paint, re-applied regularly.

From the outside you have to be up real close to see the irregular sections of billboards. The uniform red paint covers all and evens it out. White trim completes the effect.

But from the inside, the flash from the camera caught the reflective letters of old signs. A utulitarian, John Means sr. allowed that working side, the guts of the barn, to remain raw. Bales of hay for the steers are stacked, piled up handily by John and his behemoth sons and grandsons.

John Means worked for a time hanging billboards across the nation's landscape, and it wasn't unusual for him to direct some old, to-be-discarded signs to the farm, and eventually he had enough signs to make his barn. This working barn still stands in service, in Pleasant Valley (Westminster) Maryland. It can be seen above around the right corner of the old wash house in a photo taken from the dining room window on a rainy day, Dec. 26th.


It has escaped the notice of tourists.