Forget about San Francisco or Woodstock or wherever it is hippies live nowadays. Arcola is the home of Moomaw America’s One and Only Hippie Memorial. Although I live in the state of Illinois, going south of Chicago is too far south for me so I don’t think I’ll ever get to Arcola (especially since the town’s Raggedy Ann & Andy Museum closed, but who knows?). The creator of this artwork, Bob Moomaw, who lived and worked in Arcola all his life, was known as the town eccentric. He sometimes painted messages on the side of buildings like “America you’re turning into a nation of minimum-wage hamburger flippers. Rebel. Think for yourself. It works!” In 1992, after having bypass surgery and losing a leg to cancer, he started his memorial made of junk. The artwork is 62 feet long, with each foot representing one year of his life. The first 26 feet include The Great Depression, World War II and what Moomaw calls “1950s hypocrisy”, then the middle section becomes more colorful, representing the Kennedy years and the hippies. Moomaw liked their influence on freedom of expression and dissent. The last 18 feet is just plain rusted scrap showing the small mindedness of the 1980s with the election of Illinois native Ronald Reagan, whom Moomaw strongly disliked. Although Moomaw died in the late 1990s, his roadside attraction lives on.
Moomaw America’s One and Only Hippie Memorial
