Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Friday 26 July 2019

The ‘King of the Commode’ seeks an heir to his thrones

By ALLEN G. BREED assigned to learn in fifth
Associated Press grade. No one leaves with-
ALAMO HEIGHTS, Texas (AP) out signing his guestbook —
— FOR SALE: One tiny king- and a toilet seat.
dom, with many thrones. Smith is currently working
But it doesn’t come with a on a seat commemorating
hereditary title. the 2018 Winter Olympics in
That belongs, in perpetuity, South Korea. He suspects
to Barney Smith — the un- that will be his last.
disputed “King of the Com- In 2014, he lost Louise, his
mode.” wife of 74 years. A few
“There’s a lot of me in months ago, he fell and
there,” he says, sitting in broke two ribs.
front of the corrugated Daughter Julia Murders says
metal garage he’s dubbed they’ve had offers. A man
his Toilet Seat Art Museum. from India, who wanted to
There’s a lot of, well, every- buy the collection for his
thing in there. daughter, offered $20,000
Smith has one seat deco- — about $15 per seat.
rated with a chunk of the “We discussed it and we
Berlin Wall and another said, ‘Daddy, you know,
with a piece of insulation In this Wednesday, May 16, 2018, photo, retired plumber Barney Smith, 96, center, greets a visitor you’ve been doing this
from the doomed Shuttle to his Toilet Seat Art Museum in Alamo Heights, Texas. your whole life. The last few
Challenger. There are lids Associated Press years of your life, you’ve
festooned with flint arrow- hard. “This is my life’s history graves his works with cast- then, visitors from every done nothing BUT this,’”
heads, Civil War Minie balls, here,” he says. off drills donated by a local state and 83 foreign coun- says Murders, 69, who lives
Amtrak train keys, Pez dis- It started more than 50 dentist. tries have made their way nearby.
pensers — even $1 million in years ago, as a way to dis- Smith readily admits that to this little municipality People have told Smith
shredded greenbacks from play hunting trophies. he’s no Jasper Johns. completely surrounded by that he’s sitting on a pot of
the Federal Reserve Bank in Smith says his father would “The abstract artist would the city of San Antonio. gold. But Smith isn’t looking
San Antonio. spend hours cutting out, take it and he would spray He asks that visitors make to cash in.
Every inch of door, wall and sanding and varnishing a little paint over here and an appointment. But he “I want all 1,350 to be in-
ceiling space is covered. wooden shields to mount a little bit of paint here and doesn’t turn anyone away. tact in another museum
The sign out front — a com- his antlers. The son figured say, ‘This is the Alamo,’” Smith uses his walking stick somewhere,” he says. “It’s
mode lid, of course — says a toilet seat lid would do Smith says with disgust. “I to point out his favorites. not the highest bidder. It’s
Smith’s art is “NOT FOR just fine. do detail.” Like a lavatory seat from not being raffled off.”
SALE.” But after five de- “Well, I’m a master plumb- Smith toiled in obscurity un- the airplane that carried Austin writer and publisher
cades and countless offers, er, retired,” he says. “I til an artist who’d come by billionaire Aristotle Onassis’s Daedelus Hoffman says
the king says everything thought I ought to stick with to see some of his oil paint- body home to Greece. Or Smith and his collection are
must go. my trade.” ings caught a glimpse of his the piece of one of Iraqi priceless. And he wants to
“At 96, I come out here Smith had promised his garage and told a local TV dictator Saddam Hussein’s help preserve that legacy.
with a cane. I’ve gotta wife, Louise, that he’d stop station. “thrones.” His Cattywampus Press
hold onto everything to at 500. That was 850 toilet “They twisted my arm so He regales tourists with the raised more than $30,000
walk,” says Smith, who is seats ago. until I said to come on,” tale of “Old Rip,” the “horny to produce a full-color,
bent with arthritis and strug- “If I would have just read Smith says. toad” who emerged alive cloth-bound book about
gles to swing the creaking my Bible as many hours as I The piece aired on a Friday. after 31 years entombed Smith. “King of the Com-
metal doors open for visi- spent on my toilet seats, I’d The following Monday, two in the courthouse corner- mode: Barney Smith & His
tors. “I’m beginning to feel be a better man,” he says other stations came call- stone in his hometown of Toilet Seat Art Museum” is
like that I’d rather be in an with a twinkle in his eye. ing. Then came the tourists. Eastland, Texas. He also being released Saturday,
air-conditioned home in Smith’s workshop is stacked “And so I just slung the door treats each to a recitation just in time for Smith’s 97th
a chair, looking at a good floor to ceiling with card- open,” he says. of “When Earth’s Last Pic- birthday.
program.” board boxes filled with Smith officially opened as ture is Painted” — a Rud- Hoffman hopes the book
Still, walking away will be odds and ends. He en- a museum in 1992. Since yard Kipling poem he was will help Smith attract a
suitable buyer. If nothing
else, he wanted to at least
“document this piece of
Americana.”
“For me, Barney’s story is
about the innate human
desire to create and com-
municate,” Hoffman says.
“He is a folk artist. And his
story and his life work merits
preservation.”
Smith would love for the
collection to remain where
it is. But if it must move to re-
main intact, so be it.
“I’m ready to give it up
In this Wednesday, May 16, 2018, photo, retired plumber Barney In this Wednesday, May 16, 2018, photo, a visitor looks as some and let it go to London,” he
Smith, 96, walks through his Toilet Seat Art Museum in Alamo of the more than 1,350 decorated commode lids at Barney says.
Heights, Texas. Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum in Alamo Heights, Texas.
Associated Press Associated Press The Loovre, perhaps?q