Since moving to my neighborhood in spring of 2006 I've kept an extensive mental journal detailing the most interesting yards in the area. Today I would like to investigate the two most notable water features.
I noticed the first case over a year ago when there was a warm spell in early March. There was a guy out in his yard lugging bricks to a section of his yard that bordered the busy, semi-retail/commercial street. He was thin and wiry with skin the color of a hot dog despite the season. His hair was long and stringy kinda like a metal front man's, and he was wearing women's, boot cut jeans. I saw him as I drove down the street going 35 mph and had just enough time to remark on the mysterious project he was hard at work on, and the extremely obese woman sitting on the front porch of his house.
The next day I took Fox to the park in his stroller. While he played I could hear someone tink, tink, tinking away at a masonry substrate, and the faint sound of rock music. Fox was getting sleepy and began to whine about chocolate milk, so I decided to treat him to a Mayfield Chug at the Handy Dandy Market. We strolled in and got the milk and Fox settled into the stroller with his treat. As we exited the store, I remembered the guy with the bricks and decided to walk another block so I could pass his yard. I slowed my pace to a hobble which would both make me look more authentically SoKnox (as most pedestrians hobble), and allow me a longer view of the yard without revealing myself as a Looky-loo.
The guy was out with his brick pile and a hammer and chisel removing cement from the bricks with meticulous care. His aviator glasses were dark and mirrored so I wasn't able to tell if he saw me coming; just to be safe I gave him a nod. He paused for a moment, then assuming he had just imagined my signal, looked back at the lumpy brick in his hand. He had started stacking the cleaned bricks in a rectangular column which was roughly two feet high. There were lots of PVC pipes and connectors laying around, and a large, blue tarp anchored by two orange traffic cones. His house looked like it was about 600 square feet, which made me understand why he wanted to maximize his yard by flexing his home-making muscles in the out of doors, and there was no sign of the big woman.
The entire scene was effectively burned into my mind-journal, and I started imagining what he was working on.
The next day Fox and I didn't go anywhere, and that night our friend and neighbor, Dan came over for a visit. "Have you seen that guy on South Haven?!" was the first thing to come out of his mouth!
Relieved that I wasn't becoming a socially deprived stalker, I excitedly compared notes with him and we shared our theories regarding the form and function of the dude's project. We were equally tantalized by this mystery, again, much to my relief.
Dan's wife Adrienne and I called or emailed each other daily with progress reports or interesting sightings at the man's home, and we finally realized what he was creating; a water feature.
He had lined the interior walls of the rectangular column with the tarp, and used extra bricks to weigh it down on the top rim. A water hose had been run through a PVC pipe with an "elbow" joiner on the end, so the water came out at an angle. The pressure was a bit too high and it looked like a geyser on the end of a stick, or a plumbing blow-out accident. In fact, I noticed a few of the bricks were pushed out from the pressure.
The following weekend Dan, Adrienne and I talked at great length about the fountain and it's attributes. The next day I drove by and the entire thing was disassembled! The bricks were all back in a tidy stack, the tarp back on the ground with the cones, and the piping on the tarp. I was more than disappointed. While shopping at the grocery store I thought about the fountain and how it hadn't been so bad! Just a little off! What possessed him to take the thing apart?
Driving home from the store I saw the man hard at work rebuilding the fountain, only this time he stacked the bricks side to side instead of end to end, and had painted the interior pale blue like the inside of a swimming pool. As soon as I got home I called Adrienne at work and told her about the progression. She promised to take that route home to see.
The next day Fox and I walked by the house and beheld the magic! The column was three feet high and the PVC water pipe was sticking straight up in the center of the basin. The pressure was still too high so now it really looked like a geyser! At 20 feet away on the other side of the road we could feel the over spray! Cars driving by were creeping by to get a look!
Over the next two weeks many revisions took place; two flood lights pointed at the water spray, a coat of blue enamel on the exposed PVC, and finally some orange and white "go vols" pom poms attached to the corners. It was almost more than I could bear; I had to meet this man.
We left for a long weekend in Asheville and when we returned everything was different, again. The column shape was gone and in exchange was a low, wide basin similar to the dimensions of a koi pond, and the pipe was so low to the ground it couldn't be seen by passers by. The flood lights had been mounted to two tobacco stakes placed behind the fountain, and the stakes were painted blue. The flood lights provided an interesting effect on the water, but a blinding one on my eyes when I was driving by after dark.
Each day was something new with the fountain. It provided us with tons of conversation and anticipation all summer long, then one day it was gone, replaced by the blue tarp and cones. By winter time there was no trace left of the fountain, neither brick nor pipe.
I had almost forgotten about the fountain till the other day when I saw it.
That satellite dish that you see there was inverted, forming a basin in the brick part and the water pipe was in the center. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I was thrilled not only to see the fountain again, but to see the MORTAR between the bricks! It sure seemed permanent! When I took this picture I figured that he was working on the plumbing and was going to replace the satellite to it's original position.
Then the man exited his house with two mousy shi-zus trailing wearing his tight girl jeans, a baby doll midriff-bearing shirt, and carrying a bunch of junk.
It was then that I noticed something about this man that I never had before. He looked like a lady in the face.
"Ladyface"
I have studied these pictures at great length and magnification and I can't figure it out; is he a masculine lady or a soft-featured man? I can gather from the photos that there are: zero breasts
zero package bulge
there are lady jeans
scoop neck, midriff-bearing babydoll tee
manly back but without hair
lap dogs
biceps
has a lady face
As you can tell there are a few questions left unanswered.
While I was out I decided to check out the other contender in the "best water feature in SoKno" contest. Although it does deserve mention with it's mini Christmas tree and garland, it pales in comparison to the satellite idea. I will make an official decision when ladyface gets finished. 
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