Next Stop: Bologna Land, USA

If he's willing to fix the bologna sandwiches and hang out with me when we reach retirement age, I think I have found the perfect golden-years job for my brother.

I'm confident Mike would make a dandy curator for my as-yet-unnamed Roadside Attraction, the one I plan to start at our childhood home unless our mother refuses to be ticket-taker.

The possibilities for something like a Genuine Kentucky Brick House came to me years ago when I saw an American Heritage magazine story listing memorable roadside attractions in the United States.

The writer's choices included Trees of Mystery in Klamath, Calif., Parrot Jungle in Miami and the Paper House near Boston, a house whose walls are made from 215 layers of newspaper and which is featured on roadsideamerica.com, a Web site full of strange stops across America.

Along with Rock City in Chattanooga, one of the few entries I had seen up close was Wall Drug in Wall, S.D., a huge store whose treasures include a fiberglass jackalope, a 6-foot-high rabbit on wheels and a mini Mount Rushmore with a sign stating, "Please Do Not Climb On Faces."

I'm sure if we were to market our childhood home well, Mike and I could add a stop in Central Kentucky to the peculiar lineup, given his ability to create something from nothing and my ability to talk to strangers for hours if cash is involved.

We've got a 2,000-square-foot home and a full basement stuffed with memorabilia, from my dead aunt's salt and pepper shakers to my grandmother's journals from the early 1900s, a six-pack of Billy Beer, tools of the trade from a 40-year-defunct shoe repair shop and more armless dolls than you can shake a stick at, provided YOU have arms.

And if that's not enough, our attraction-to-be is just 30 miles from a big, now-empty metal teepee near Williamstown, Ky., something odd enough for a mention on roadsideamerica.com, too.

NEXT STOP: BOLOGNA LAND

According to Wade Gutman at Grant County Chamber of Commerce, the teepee was the building the gas station attendant worked out of at Hillside Truck Stop, on Kentucky Highway 25 south of Covington.

The teepee, Gutman said, was constructed in the 1950s or earlier, probably to snare the interest and business of travelers like my dad, a man hard-pressed to pass up a place with luncheon meat, bread, a clean bathroom AND a teepee.

Until about 1967, my bologna-loving dad refused to take Interstate 75 from our house to Covington, shouting, as Mike and I turned green on the winding state road, "There's nothing to see on the interstate, for cryin' out loud! We're almost to the teepee!"

Given that background, I figured the one and only road trip I took with my family as an adult, through Florida, should include a stop in St. Augustine, at the Tragedy in U.S. History Museum.

The museum, now closed, featured the car in which actress Jayne Mansfield was supposedly riding when she died in a car crash -- a Buick, though crash photos show she died in a Cadillac -- Lee Harvey Oswald's bedroom furniture, and a photocopy of Elvis Presley's last will and testament.

Instead of treating everyone to roadside weirdness, however, my parents insisted on an afternoon at a historic fort.

On the plus side, Daddy drove on the interstate from Kentucky to Florida and back home, too.

And no one made me eat "lunch meat," which I have hated since 1962.

I didn't want to push my luck and demand to see the car in which Jayne Mansfield might, or might not, have eaten her last bologna sandwich.

HOMESPUN RICHES

A while back, I visited my mom, who hopes to stay in our family home until she leaves for the Big Roadside Attraction in the Sky.

We got up around 5:30 a.m., stepping outside to take in the misty morning air and the sounds of chirping birds.

"I love it here," she said.

I love it, too.

Throw in a replica of an almost-authentic death car, a couple of rocks shaped like scary jackalopes and Teddy Roosevelt's bespectacled mug, and we'll all come out winners.

And don't forget Mike, calling out: "For those of you who remember the days when a pound of bologna was less than a buck, the trolley to the old teepee leaves in 45 minutes. Just don't get any ideas about riding on the interstate. There's nothing to see on the interstate, folks! NOTHING!

"And for cryin' out loud! I beg you! Please do NOT climb on the faces!"