Eggs"hell"and?

Speer Here - So, reading Richard's post on can openers, I said to myself (after laughing hysterically at how mind-numbingly boring his was) "I can entertain better than that..." So, I give you:

Eggshelland. Have you heard of it?

For 55 years Ron Manolio has delicately cut the end off of eggs at a local diner to collect his shells while they serve the eggs in omelets, took them home, rinsed out the shells and painted them - rumored to be at a rate of 3 per minute - and then placed them in patterns in his yard for basically only 10 days before Easter every year, arranging them in impressive designs mounted on wooden pegs, based on popular images of the past year (Mario when Mario was popular, Fire/Police after September 11, Scooby Doo, etc..). Literally hundreds of thousands of eggs:

Impressive, eh?

If you know Cleveland, or received out latest Christmas card, you'll see that Easter in Cleveland is unpredictable at best, and typically is still firmly in the "Winter" category. Temperatures are still freezing even in the day and there is often snow on the ground. There are no fluffy chicks and flowery dresses at Easter Egg hunts here, full winter regalia is still required. A hard rain or hail can bust these eggs, requiring hours of work in repair, and Ron stored all of these eggs in his home year around for the 10 day spectacle. For 55 years!

Here is a short film (that I ripped off from YouTube) that shows the first year we visited Eggshellland. That year, the sign says that there were over 32,000 eggs in the display, and the theme was something about flying. Pretty cool. The cars line up for blocks, the streets are filled with groups of families. A line forms at one end of the circle that Ron lived on, and wound its way around, each person having a minute or two to snap photos, take movies of the kids by all the egg shells and see all of the creations. It got so busy that the police frequently needed to direct traffic in the neighborhood.

Ron Manolio

Ron died last August. The cause it not important. It was not egg related.

Ron Manolio was an artist, and I have no doubt that he lived and breathed this 10-day display every day, thinking of ways to design something different, a new display or a faster way to paint. It gets in your brain and you get obsessive about it, and it does not leave until you let it out into the world to fly.

The display became a family affair - the first design (I believe) was a cross and it ballooned from there; more and more people were needed to help pull it off as every year Ron became more and more notable locally, then eventually nationally and internationally when the 24 hour news networks needed ANYTHING to fill all 24 hours. There was even a full scale documentary movie filmed about Eggshelland. Pretty soon  it became so rooted in the traditions of local families and published in must-see attractions of the area that failing to provide Eggshelland would be devastating to everyone involved. Ron's wife computerized the designs, their children and grandchildren helped to set up and maintain the eggs (tree limbs have fallen on the display, hail has obliterated it, the heavy Cleveland rains have washed sections of the light, hollow shells away, etc...) and then Ron died unexpectedly.

The family decided that this year would be the last. The design is basically a portrait of Ron and a big Thanks and Goodbye kind of tribute. Clearly the annual display was a huge undertaking and nobody else in the family apparently had the passion to take up the challenge annually.

When I heard this I grew conflicted about going to see it one last time. It might be a local routine and a final huzzah to a man that dedicated his life to one thing, but it also a freeing time for his family. Despite all helping that they (probably) mostly did without complaining for 55 years, this was not their dream, and it can be seen in the final design. They were sucked into the vortex of a man that did something quirky and creative and it took off beyond any original intention. I am not implying that the family was dragged into this against their will, it was probably amazing to be part of such a spectacle, but it was not their dream or somebody would have grabbed the steering wheel of the project and kept their foot on the gas.

We decided that we witnessed a few years of Ron's best work, and it was right to respect the peace of both Ron and his family that have gone on with their lives.