The owner of a local antique store insisted that I have this tiny ashtray when he heard that I was from Wyoming.

He hunted his cluttered store for a good 20 minutes reassuring me that it was an ashtray with the iconic horse-and-rider that Wyoming is known for. We even talked a bit about Frontier Days, also known as the ‘Gandaddy of em All,’ because it’s the largest rodeo in the country. I grew up with it just across town, and Big Red (the shop owner) took great delight in this.

You can imagine his disappointment when he finally found the ashtray and it had ‘Georgia’ scratched across it. And what am I to feel about Georgia fighting for cowboy credentials? Sorry Georgia. You can have peaches, but please keep away from horse-and-rider imagery. In the meantime, I’ll hold on to this ashtray for you.

Big Red is an interesting man, and if you live in the area I encourage you to find his Carrboro store. I’ve featured some of his designs on this site before. His wonderful photocopied poster for his store, Oddities and Such, is in my post about the hand-painted signs of Carrboro, as well as his open signs with clowns painted on them.