Last year, November 30th, to be exact, I drove by a local landmark and thought about taking a picture of it. It was dark and I decided to just drive home. After all, I could always take a picture of it later. The next day hurricane winds tore through our neighborhood and that landmark ceased to be. I never did get a chance to take a picture of the big Christmas tree in Farmington.
Today I drove south along the frontage road and I saw another landmark, the Fadels sign. Anyone who grew up in Farmington for the past 40 years knows exactly what I'm talking about. Back then the sign stood alone in a field of weeds. Everyone who drove north or south on I-15 saw the sign. We would ride by on our bicycles heading to Bountiful and see the big white sign with only one word on it. Fadels.
The sign wasn't like the billboards that line our freeways today. There was no mention of what Fadels was, or where it was. For all we knew, Fadels could have been some fictional place that existed only in the mind of a sign builder.
But Fadels did exist. It took me years to figure out that Fadels was/is a furniture store in Salt Lake City. I googled it and it looks like it's still there, and there's a store in Bountiful. I decided to stop by the sign today and I'm glad I did. There's a public notice from the city telling the owners of the sign to fix it up or it will be demolished.
As an advertising device, the sign is no longer effective. For the millions of cars that drive pass by, the sign now surrounded by homes and sound walls, only those who know the sign is there can even see it. I suppose if it does come down no one will know except those of us that remember when that strange shaped sign stood alone in a field of weeds.
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