{"id":3270,"date":"2014-08-07T06:45:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T12:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2014-08-08T17:38:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T23:38:37","slug":"photo-gallery-shrines-of-the-south-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/08\/photo-gallery-shrines-of-the-south-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo Gallery: Shrines of the South Side"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t<div id=\"slides-3270\" class=\"navis-slideshow\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slide-nav\">\n\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"prev\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"next\"><\/a>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slides_container\"><div id=\"3270-slide1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rebar-shrine-1-of-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rebar-shrine-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/LastBest News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This was one of the more elaborate shrines I saw. It is on State Avenue. The piece of bare rebar above the angel once held another statue, obviously, probably of Jesus.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-princess-1-of-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-princess-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This garden angel looked very much like a princess.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide3\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Junkyard-apostle-1-of-1.jpg*771*515\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Junkyard-apostle-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>It was hard to spot this statue \u2014 one of the apostles? \u2014 amid all the stuff around him, but there he was on his plastic chair.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Peaceful-Buddha-1-of-1.jpg*771*527\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Peaceful-Buddha-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>A peaceful Buddha in a front-yard shrine.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-welcome-1-of-1.jpg*771*534\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-welcome-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Our angel, and our scarecrow, welcome you.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide6\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Railing-angel-1-of-1.jpg*771*579\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Railing-angel-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This little cherub was perched on a backyard railing.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mickey-Angel-1-of-1.jpg*771*501\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mickey-Angel-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Another cherub, next to Mickey Mouse. If there is any meaning in the juxtaposition, we are not aware of what it is.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide8\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-fiddler-1-of-1.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-fiddler-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This angel is playing a wee fiddle.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide9\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Blowing-prayer-flags-1-of-1.jpg*771*490\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Blowing-prayer-flags-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Buddhist prayer flags flutter in a passing breeze. In the background is a dreamcatcher.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide10\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-fairy-1-of-1.jpg*771*505\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-fairy-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This could be an angel with the wind chimes, or she could be a fairy. We are not really sure.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide11\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-Mary-1-of-1.jpg*771*536\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-Mary-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>A glass angel hovers over a statue of the Virgin Mary.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide12\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mary-bathtub-1-of-1.jpg*771*546\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mary-bathtub-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>The Virgin in a bathtub, surrounded by all sorts of strange objects.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide13\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Buddah-1-of-1.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Buddah-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Not exactly a laughing Buddha, but a smiling one, anyway. We are not sure of the significance of the flyswatter.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide14\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Children-No.-2-1-of-1.jpg*771*550\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Children-No.-2-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Blessed are the children.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide15\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sacred-heart-1-of-1.jpg*771*493\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sacred-heart-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Jesus of the Sacred Heart, with flowers.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide16\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Prayer-flags-1-of-1.jpg*771*395\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Prayer-flags-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Tattered prayer flags, peeling paint.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide17\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pensive-cherub-1-of-1.jpg*771*541\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pensive-cherub-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>A pensive cherub, in a birdbath.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"3270-slide18\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-Flag-1-of-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Angel-Flag-1-of-1.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>An angel, with an American flag in the background.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><script>jQuery( document ).ready( function() { loadSlideshow( 3270, 'https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/08\/photo-gallery-shrines-of-the-south-side\/', 18 ) } );<\/script>\n<p>My dogs and I spend a lot of time walking on the South Side, where we all find much to interest us.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think the variety of olfactory data is any thicker on the South Side than elsewhere in town, but my dogs certainly keep busy on our strolls. With their snouts an inch or so off the ground, they move their heads from side to side like minesweepers, occasionally pouncing on a fragment of food or a scrap of unrecognizable organic matter.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There are also countless other dogs \u2014 most of them communicating vehemently from behind fences \u2014 to keep them occupied. Sometimes we encounter free-roaming dogs and once two large gray dogs leapt over their fence as nimbly as a pair of deer, but we\u2019ve never had any fights or even unpleasantness.<\/p>\n<p>While they are busy with their investigations and social affairs, I am soaking in the sights, which is what keeps me going back to the South Side.<\/p>\n<p>There, more than in any other part\u00a0of Billings, people tend to decorate their yards elaborately, and not just with landscaping. There is a fair amount of store-bought ornamentation, things like cheap sundials, trellises, bird baths, birdhouses and little wagons hitched to ceramic donkeys.<\/p>\n<p>There are many yards with crowded displays of flowers and scarecrows, statues of gnomes, chipmunks and birds, pinwheels, glass or clay ornaments hanging from lines of string, little gurgling fountains, Christmas lights left up year-round and all sorts of rock walls, pathways and enclosures.<\/p>\n<p>Other people just have a lot of stuff in their yards \u2014 bicycles, tires, file cabinets, piles of wood, garden implements, hoses, discarded exercise equipment, maybe a box spring or two.<\/p>\n<p>In one yard there is a collection of old sofas grouped in a half moon around a huge old television. I think it\u2019s a joke; I don\u2019t think the television is plugged in. Whatever, it\u2019s a good conversation piece.<\/p>\n<p>There is one more thing I have come to look for as I wander the South Side: religious shrines and statuary. My grandmother used to have a shrine to the Virgin in her backyard, a statue of Mary about 2 feet high inside a little wooden box with a chapel-like roof, hung from a tree.<div class=\"well\"><div class=\"dfad dfad_pos_1 dfad_first\" id=\"_ad_652\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/mjhWkW\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\" alt=\"CapreAir_Variable\" width=\"510\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18069\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n<p>There are shrines just like it on the South Side, and countless other statues of angels and cherubs and Jesus. Sometimes the statues sit by themselves, but often they are accompanied by kitsch. I don\u2019t sense any irony or disrespect in these cases.\u00a0It just so happens that some people who like religious statuary also like yard ornaments in general, so ceramic squirrels and plastic deer end up next to religious figurines, making for an interesting mix of sacred and profane, serious and silly.<\/p>\n<p>A good example of this, in my little collection of photos, is the one showing a cherub next to a statue of Mickey Mouse. Mickey is bent over, holding up or pushing back a round piece of stone. Maybe it represents the rolling away of the stone at Jesus\u2019 tomb? I really don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>And not all the shrines or statues celebrate Christianity. As you will see in the\u00a0photos, there are also Buddhist prayer flags and statues of the Buddha.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite in the gallery of pictures above is the photo with the statue of Mary inside an upright, partially buried bathtub. That itself is not particularly unusual, but what surrounded the Virgin was strange enough.<\/p>\n<p>I first saw this yard walking with my dogs. I noticed a couple of Halloween leftovers \u2014 fiendish masks set up on stakes shrouded in black \u2014 plus an old toilet, a storm door, hanging sheets and a Santa Claus stocking cap on a pole.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t see any religious artifacts, but when I was out on my bicycle, looking for shrines to photograph, something prompted me to go back to that yard and peer over the fence \u2014 and there was Mary in the bathtub.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure I have many more such discoveries ahead of me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My dogs and I spend a lot of time walking on the South Side, where we all find much to interest us. I don\u2019t think the variety of olfactory data is any thicker on the South Side than elsewhere in town, but my dogs certainly keep busy on our strolls. With their snouts an inch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[747],"tags":[1147,1145,1148,1144,1146,319,678],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photo-galleries","tag-angels","tag-buddha","tag-cherubs","tag-jesus","tag-prayer-flags","tag-south-side","tag-virgin-mary","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}