The Christmas tree in the gloom

When I pulled onto Raleigh's I-440 at 6:45 a.m. the other morning for a quick back-and-forth trip to Charlotte, the world was a gloomy place -- a nasty little mist putting a fuzzy aura around lampposts and headlights. It was going to be a long, hard day -- and then I saw a sight that never fails to lift my spirits. Perched high in a copse of pine (Sunday addition: and hardwood) trees just off the beltway where motorists from both directions can see it well, a brightly-lit Christmas-tree-shaped decoration shone through the gloom. It's a Christmas gift to travelers who race around Raleigh, a brief interlude in a fast-paced lifestyle that reminds me to slow down and enjoy the season.
It's been that way since some time back in the 1990s when Mike Minikus and his family first hoisted a hula-hoop-and-wire contraption lit with lights to the top of a tree towering over the brick wall separating his property from the highway. After the 9-11 attacks, the lights were red, white and blue for a while. Each Christmas the lights reappear and provide a moment of cheer for motorists and passengers along that way.
It also reminds me of other roadside memorials along the waysides of this state's roads. When I take U.S. 64 west towards Charlotte, I always look for the scale replica of the twin towers that a stonemason built beside the road somewhere between Raleigh and Asheboro -- perhaps six feet high or so, one with slightly darker stone than the other, representing the World Trade Centers that fell in the 2001 terrorists attacks.
And there's a field alongside I-85 south of Greensboro where someone flew a lone American flag in the middle of an empty field, a sentinel that I still watch for on those long rides down the road.
These bits of Americana are priceless gems to me, signs of an American spirit that endures in tough times, and help brighten the way. I'm grateful for them -- and for the hands that put them up for all of us to see.