While most people refer to a button as the “thing” that holds your pants up, for 75-year-old Dalton Stevens, it’s a work of art.
Stevens, better known as the “Button King,” has been practicing this art form for 15 years.
He got involved with the hobby after suffering from insomnia and needed something to keep him busy.
“I didn’t sleep some times for four or five days,” Stevens said. “So I started doing buttons, the first thing I did was sew buttons on a suit.”
The suit has 16,333 buttons sewed onto the material and took him two years and 10 months to complete.
Among the other items Stevens has put buttons on are: an outhouse, a hearse, a Chevrolet Chevette, a guitar, a piano and two caskets, one of which he will be buried in when he passes away. The hearse has 600,000 buttons while the Chevrolet has 149,000 buttons attached.
Recently he just opened a museum to showcase all of his creations.
The museum is located off of Highway 34 between Bishopville and Camden and is open six days a week. For those interested in touring the museum you can call Stevens at (803) 428-3841.
Stevens puts the buttons on with contact cement and gets a lot of supplies donated by different companies including the Adelphia Button Co. of Philadelphia.
He picks and chooses what items he puts the buttons on.
“The reason I did the outhouse is because I have a lot of school children that come through here and have never seen anything like that before,” he said. “And a lot of the senior citizens that come have seen something like that and have used it like I have.”
In years past he has appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, “The David Letterman Show” and “Nashville Now” with Ralph Emery. He has even appeared in Star Magazine and on local and national television newscasts.
“I’ve been on Carson show twice and Letterman three times,” Stevens said. “When I appeared on the Carson show I had been married for thirty-two years. He asked me what was the secret of a long marriage. I told him if anything ever happens between me and my wife I’m gonna get one of your ex wives that gets all that alimony money. That was about one of the best things that I’ve done on TV.”
Stevens said that he never thought that his hobby would lead to so many opportunities.
“On these shows you can’t buy your way or you can’t beg your way on,” he said. “I earned the opportunity to appear on these shows and in the magazines.”
Stevens has even developed a fan base out of this popularity.
“A woman from California called me and told me that I was the last thing that she saw at night and the first thing she saw in the morning,” Stevens said. “I told her that I don’t believe I understand what you’re talking about. She told me that she had my picture above her bed on the ceiling. I told her that was pretty unique.”
Stevens is also a vocalist and has two songs that he wrote about all of his creations.
“I have a unique song and it goes like this,” he said. “If you like the color of my clothes, would you give me buttons instead of a rose. Buttons can be square or round, they keep my pants from falling down.”
His other song, “Insomniac Shuffle” is as follows: “Give me a bag of buttons, buttons are my bag, I start sewing buttons before my eyes begin to sag. Buttons will make or break me when I sign the big contract, then I’ll be the richest of all insomniacs.”
As of this time, Stevens has no plans of creating any more of his patented items.
These days he enjoys spending time with his wife of 50 years and his three children, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
“I just got tired of going,” Stevens said. “I decided that if people want to see it they can come to me.”
Admission to the museum is free, but Stevens does accept donations.
Shani Shingnapur, the world famous temple town in Maharashtra, India where houses have neither doors nor locks, now befittingly has its first commercial bank branch with no locks on its front door.
The public sector UCO Bank is the first to throw open the doors of commercial banking to this unique town of 3,000 people. Bowing to local religious sentiments, the bank last week decided to open the branch without a lock on its front door.
The people of Shani Shingnapur fix only door frames, but no doors to their homes and no locks for their safety lockers because they believe the temple is a "living abode" of Lord Shani, the ruling deity. And so strong is the belief that no one dares to attempt theft for fear of inviting Lord Shani's wrath upon himself and his family.
However, as a precautionary measure, some of the six-member staff of UCO Bank posted they take turns to stay within the branch premises all the time.
"There is no lock on the bank's main entrance. But with cash boxes and other important documents kept inside, security precautions needed to be taken," said an official.
The inauguration was done amid fanfare on January 6 by local legislator Shankarrao Gadak of the Nationalist Congress Party, who is also an important driving force behind the Shani Shingnapur temple.
The bank's branch manager, UK Shah said that the first bank in the town has already caught the imagination of the people and that he was optimistic of good growth.
"So far, we have built a customer base of over 200 people and more are coming in. We plan to have our ATM here soon," a proud Shah said.
However, the local and district police are not impressed by the 'lock-less' bank branch and have already sounded a word of caution to the concerned authorities.
For one, keeping large quantities of cash without security could attract undue attention of undesirable elements, a district police official pointed out.
The other banks in the nearest town Sonai have refused to cooperate with the UCO Bank branch to store its cash overnight on public holidays and weekends.
The UCO Bank's own nearest branch is at Ahmednagar, 40 km away, making it an impractical proposition to transfer huge amounts of cash to and fro twice a day by road.
The bank authorities discussed security aspects with the police and the local police have offered to provide them armed gunmen - but at a cost of nearly Rs.100,000 per month. This was not acceptable to the bank authorities, an official said.
Despite repeated attempts by IANS, the UCO Bank authorities in Kolkata and Mumbai regional and zonal offices chose to keep mum on the security considerations for the Shani Shingnapur branch.
A district official said that contrary to the image of the temple town, tourists and pilgrims are blatantly fleeced in the name of religion by nearly 300 touts operating outside the temple precincts.
According to a police official, a couple of decades ago, wearing of lungi or a coloured dhoti was suddenly introduced for devotees visiting the temple -- without which, the touts claimed, the Sun God would not accept their prayers.
"A single lungi is rented to several pilgrims at exorbitant rates of Rs.200 and more. Since nobody carries a lungi with them, they are forced to rent it. The district authorities have done nothing to stop this menace," the police official said.
On an average, around 5,000 tourists and pilgrims visit the town daily and on weekends the number swells to over 50,000.
Incidentally, on October 25 last year, the first ever case of robbery was recorded by the Sonai police. A Haryana tourist lost valuables worth around Rs. 35,000, a Sonai police official said.
A young British woman has failed her driving theory exam an astonishing 90 times, spending about 3,000 pounds before she even sits for the practical test.
The 26-year-old from London, who last appeared in her theory test in November 2010, set a British record by failing for the 90th time, the Daily Mail reported. The Driving Standards Agency revealed the figures after a Freedom of Information request to find the worst drivers in Britain.
The driving theory test costs 31 pounds to sit and is a multiple choice exam in which a wannabe driver has to get 43 or more questions out of 50 correct within 57 minutes before taking to the road for their practical test.
According to the figures, a 39-year-old man from the West Midlands, England has set a record for the most number of practical tests in Britain. He failed the last test, his 36th, last year.
The Guinness World Record for the most practical driving tests ever taken is held by Git Kaur Randhawa, of Hayes, Middlesex, who finally triumphed at her 48th attempt after more than 330 lessons in 1987 just weeks before her 50th birthday.
The world record for the number of theory tests taken is held by a South Korean woman called Cha Sa-soon who passed at her 950th attempt in November 2009.
