About The President’s Head…

I’m concerned about the state of the President’s head.

No, not THAT one.

Let me rephrase. I’m concerned about the state of the Presidents’ heads.

Need more?

Hidden away in a private industrial recycling facility near Williamsburg, Virginia, I found one of the strangest unintentional roadside attractions I’ve ever encountered. Forty-two 18 to 20-foot-tall decaying presidential busts—cracked, chipped, haunting remnants of a closed attraction called Presidents Park.

When the park went bankrupt in 2010, due to low attendance, the statues were slated for destruction. But the contractor who was hired to demolish them decided to save them and move them to his private property eleven miles up the road. That’s where they’ve sat ever since, slowly decaying and sinking into the mud.

You’d think that would’ve been the end of the story.

But a strange thing happened.

The very same statues that people weren’t interested in seeing when they were pristine in a manicured park are now attracting thousands of visitors from around the world. People are drawn to see them as they crumble.

Why?

I was just there. It’s weird. It’s eerie. It’s both unsettling and magnetic at the same time. It tells a story that is stranger, deeper, and more meaningful than it did before. About humanity. About mortality. About fragility. And that’s the story that is bringing people from near and far.

Go see The Presidents’ Heads while they’re still there (they may not be soon).

Feel the story they tell.

And remember that sometimes stories go in directions you don’t expect. What you intend isn’t always what the audience wants.

Sometimes the story you never meant to tell becomes the one people remember.

Stories matter.

#ThePresidentsHeads #Storytelling