A new ornament is rearing up on the nation`s lawns, and it`s even bigger than the pink flamingo. In more ways than one.
It`s called the Granny Fanny. It`s called other things, too. But that`s the only name acceptable for print.
The Granny Fanny is a piece of plywood cut and painted to resemble the back end of a plump, old woman. She`s bending over, working in her garden. At least, you hope that`s what she`s doing. Most Granny Fannies show the lower half of a polka-dot dress, bare pink legs and socks. Sometimes you also see a frill of lace.
Some of these fannies aren`t small, either. Many are 4 feet high and 26 inches across, from bottom to bottom.
Who has the cheek to put something like that on the lawn?
That`s the interesting part.
You don`t see many Granny Fannies in Middle America, the polite word for where most of us live. They are the special pet of the richer, preppier suburbs.
”We sell them at the rate of 100 a week,” said Donald Goeglein, sales manager for a suburban St. Louis landscaping contractor. ”You know what`s amazing? We sell them in the winter. Usually people don`t buy many lawn ornaments then. We`ve had customers buy them when it was 4 degrees above zero. ”The big fannies are $15. The little ones are $10.”
Granny`s better half is a Grampy Fanny. No skin for him. Grampy does not expose his legs in Bermuda shorts. He`s decently clad in overalls, with a real red bandanna flapping out his back pocket.
”Ours are made by a guy in Illinois,” said St. Louis landscaper R. Douglas Gross. ”He works out of his home. He may use a pattern, I don`t know. ”He started making wooden tulips. Then he got the idea for the fannies. We can`t get enough of them.”
More Top Picks Heaters
Calls to Chicago area gardening stores turned up at least one chain that is carrying such items, Frank`s Nursery & Crafts, where they sell for $11.99. Gross doesn`t believe Granny Fannies are confined to the well-heeled. He said everyone buys them. Even grannies. One afternoon, an elderly woman stopped by. She bought two fannies. Waiting in her Cadillac was an even older woman.
”We had a truck driver from California pick a pair up and take them back. He`s been looking all over for those fannies. He couldn`t get them back home. We`ve had people buy them and carry them back on the plane.
”I`d say about half are sincere, and half are buying them for jokes to put in their neighbors` yards and embarrass them.
”If you`re not in on it, you wonder who . . . would want those dumb things. But they sell.”
And not just in St. Louis. They`ve been sighted as far east as Pennsylvania. They aren`t a new phenomenon, either.
”I saw my first fanny 50 years ago in my grandma`s garden,” Gross said. Did it belong to your grandma?
”No,” he said. ”It was plywood.” –