Scene This Week In...

Is it just me or does anyone else find the display of the poinsettia tree skeleton tragic?

The once elegant fixture of the Columbia holiday scene now sits stripped of its red flowers in a Merriweather Post Pavilion parking lot. I’m sorry but it comes off to me as a cheap sideshow in the already borderline tacky Symphony of Lights.

It is worse of course during the day when the colored lights that it has been festooned with have no effect. Fortunately the general public can’t see it as the exhibit is closed during the daytime. The poinsettia tree I knew and loved was beautiful day in and night without any artificial lighting.

And viewing it was free, now it will cost you twenty bucks a car just to see it in this sadly diminished form.

Thus I have dubbed it “The Ghost of Christmas Past.” You can read more about it in my column the December issue of the Business Monthly. I’ll post the link here under “The Way I See It” after the paper hits the streets next week.

On a lighter note, this fire hydrant in Ellicott City cracked me up. Those are pieces of chewing gum plastered around it. This particular fireplug sits on the corner of Winding Ross Way and Edgehill Court in Taylor Village in Ellicott City. It happens to be on the main walking route to the bus stop for a large number of elementary and middle school kids.

A true work of people’s art.