E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Speakup and View Comments
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Record-Sized Nut a Tribute to Dad
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
ALAMOGORDO — There's more than one big nut in New Mexico, but let's turn our attention on this Father's Day to the 30-foot-tall one that Tim McGinn put up on the side of the highway near Alamogordo in memory of his dad.
If you've never stood at the base of a big green pistachio nut that stretches three stories high, as the New Mexico sun shines down and cars zip by on U.S. 54 and deliver the occasional toot, let me tell you that you've still got a little living to do.
It is one giant nut, the largest known pistachio nut in the world. And (if you can say this about a nut made from steel, lath, stucco and 35 gallons of paint) it is absolutely lovely.
If it seems that building a towering nut as a roadside attraction is an odd way to show your love for your pop, allow me to take you inside the McGinn family of Otero County, which will make it all as clear as this June day.
Tim McGinn, 40, chokes up a little when he talks about his father, Tom McGinn, the founder of the Pistachio Tree Farm that Tom and Tim owned jointly.
"He loved his farm. He loved to eat. He loved to laugh," Tim says about his dad, who died of a heart attack on Aug. 4, 2008. "He always said, 'Be bold in the things you do because, why not? Life is short.' "
Tom McGinn had two loves. They were pistachios, the 12,500 pistachio trees he planted, and the pistachio retail and wholesale operation that grew from the orchard. And the gigantic roadside attractions of America, the kitschy statues that he stopped to visit as he hauled the kids from coast to coast every summer. World's largest pecan. World's largest lemon. World's biggest ball of twine. He stopped at them all.
When Tom McGinn died at age 78, his son was devastated and he wondered what he could do to show his love and appreciation for a dear dad and a great business partner.
"I thought, I can't just put up a grave marker," Tim says. "I needed to build a monument that was as big as the man."
He came up with the nutty idea of combining his father's passions into a giant pistachio.
He told his friend, home builder Ernest Martinez, "We'd like you to build a giant single pistachio."
How big? Martinez wanted to know.
Thirty feet tall.
Martinez laughed and got to work on a plan. He drilled a hole in the ground 9 feet deep and filled it with concrete and rebar. Then he bolted a 30-foot pipe to the foundation and began to weld arms onto it every few feet. It looked like a giant honeycomb for a while, and people in town started to wonder what Tim McGinn was up to.
People had a lot of guesses. A Christmas tree. An ear of corn. A big bird cage. A rocket. An egg.
Other people were just confused.
"I told people this was a sculpture for my dad and some people took that to mean it was a sculpture of my dad," Tim says.
When it came time to shape the steel into a nut, Tim picked the perfect pistachio from his considerable stash and held it up, squinted and directed the builders where to trim. When the steel was netted with lath, it became obvious that the towering objet d'art was a pistachio. After several stucco coats, a whitewash and a paint job, the nut really came to life.
So here it stands, with acres of pistachio orchards behind it, along with the vineyards that Tom McGinn added in 1996. People drive by, they turn around and pull in and take pictures. A lot of them laugh, and that makes Tim know that he did the right thing.
Every once in a while, he Googles "world's largest pistachio nut" and has a laugh himself when he sees the photos that travelers have posted and realizes that his dad's monument has become part of roadside Americana.
"I'm just so happy," he says. "I'm surrounded by him every day here."
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. You can reach Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com.
| We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. |
|
|
