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had been turned too thin for the clay they were using. More
commonly, damage consisted of underfired bottoms and singed
surfaces. All such failures went on the jar pile — a mounded, sprawling
accumulation of broken or badly fired ware. The remainder was set
out on tables in the yard to attract passersby (fig. 37).
Figure 37. Display tables in the pottery yard. (Photo by Ralph Rinzler, 1967.)
THE ENSUING YEARS: 1968-1979
Since his father's deadi, Lanier Meaders has maintained the family
pottery and continued its operation in much the fashion just
described. Still, there have been changes. A multilane interstate
highway (U.S. 129), constructed in 1962-63, now bypasses the
pottery to the west, leaving Lanier relatively free of the crush of
visitors that so frustrated his father's last years. Nevertheless, as soon
as the potter opens his furnace (he fires the kiln now at irregular
intervals from spring through fall), customers appear without
advertising.
Lanier turns mostly face jugs these days to accommodate a backlog of
requests for die humorous vessels. He complains, though, that he gets
tired of making face jugs —he estimates that he has turned some 4,000
to date —and often takes a day off from work or spends his time
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