Front-yard monument slams Obama

For years, the tombstone outside Weldon Showalter’s Park Street home bid rest in peace to the Meadowcreek Parkway.

Now that the parkway has risen zombie-like to run its concrete ribbon through a portion of McIntire Park and Albemarle County, the headstone marks the metaphorical grave of “America, Our Beloved Country, 1776 to 2009.”

“The parkway is at the point that I don’t think they can turn back,” Mr. Showalter said, sitting on his front porch as late-morning traffic roared by, one vehicle every other second. “That, and my wife was on me to change the sign because it had been around for a long time.”

Right-of-center

The 81-year-old businessman, who continues to work after his Jefferson Journal newspaper folded 20 years ago and depleted his savings, has a sense of humor, one that is a bit dark and far right of center.

He’s named his 1,186-square-foot, two-story, post-war house Montpeculiar, in keeping with local traditions of naming homesteads. He’s often used his yard and home to convey his feelings on issues over the years.

“I had designed a new sign to go up all about global warming, which I think is a farce,” Mr. Showalter said. “I don’t doubt that there is global warming, but I think it’s natural and cyclical, not caused by mankind.”

A visit to Charlottesville’s tea party tax protest and increasing government spending and debt changed his mind.

“Where Marxism thrives, freedom dies,” the faux monument proclaims. “Dedicated to President Obama and his liberal disciples.”

“I really do love this country and I can’t stand to see what’s happened to it,” he says. “Look at all of the spending in the budget. I can’t imagine what $3 trillion looks like. There are too many zeros. How are we going to pay for all of that?”

He watches traffic for a few minutes.

“The government is taking over the banks, the insurance companies and the auto companies. We’re going farther into socialism than Europe. We’re now dependent on government to take care of us. There’s an awful lot of people who, if they weren’t worried [before the election], they’re worried now,” he says.

‘Beginning of the end’

“The way I look at it, it’s like 1776 was the end of the beginning of our country. Now, 2009 is the beginning of the end of the country,” he says.

“There’s enough blame to go around. Bush certainly has his share and so does the news media. The news media doesn’t cover things like it should. I was in newspapers most of my life and, if they’d been on the ball, they would have been writing stories on the subprime mortgage fiasco long before things fell apart.”

And so Mr. Showalter put his feelings into “art-out-of-place,” the faux grave in his front yard.

“I know it’s politically incorrect to criticize Obama, but it’s the way I feel. I haven’t gotten any responses from the sign and that’s fine. I don’t put it up to get comments; I do it because it’s my way of expressing my feelings. I’m free to put it up and other people are free to think of it what they want,” he said.

“And, when my wife gets tired of it, I’ll change it again.”