My grandmother, Mary Jean Coor-Phillips-Agnew-Terwilliger (Maw Maw was a looker and fun to be with, but had horrible luck with her first two husbands), lived just off Raymond Road, on McGee Street, a few blocks west of this intersection. It was at this red light that we turned to go to her house. My dad and his sisters grew up here, and my grandmother lived there from the 1950s until 1997, when we had to move her to a retirement facility because of Parkinson's disease and the unfortunate decline of her neighborhood. Maw Maw Jean has been gone for 8 years, but when I'm in this part of town it is like she's right beside me. Another tidbit about my ties to this area (which I'm sure nobody cares about but me) - my grandfather, Edward Agnew, Sr., worked for the U. S. Postal Service. He worked at the downtown branch until he had a heart attack. After that, he transferred to the branch that used to be in the Mart 51 shopping center, right near this intersection. Another heart attack took his life a few years later, and I never got to meet him. Sad story, huh? I'm sorry... on to the traffic box.
It's only fitting, that another South Jackson-er should get to paint this traffic box. You've seen Scott Allen's work on the box at Court and West streets, the street-art style featuring a bluesman on guitar. He's a friend of mine, owner of A+ Signs, and a great artist.
Scott has been branching out in his artwork lately, trying out a style reminiscent of Walter Anderson. Lots of line-drawings with heavy black outlines. This box seems to be sort of a cross-breed between the Anderson style and street art. It's glorious no matter how you look at it. And it pretties up this long-neglected corner like nobody's business. I just wish Maw Maw Jean could see it. She probably wouldn't know what to think!
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