Is Clint Eastwood back?

“Is Clint back?” I always ask Jim, my husband, after his hikes in the hills above Descanso Gardens.

“Clint” is the life-size cutout of Clint Eastwood that appeared just off the trail a while back, but it keeps mysteriously disappearing.

Bringing the Wild West back to the high chaparral in the San Rafael Hills, Justin, a local artist, has captivated many with his “public art.”

Jim met an out- of-town couple last year who had hiked up the steep terrain off the 2 Freeway to get a closer look at the rugged cowboy in a pose from “A Fistful of Dollars.”

After he photographed them with their iPhone next to the Spaghetti Western star, Jim pointed them to an easier route down to their car.

Jim’s last sighting of a new-and-improved Clint was early last week. The cutout was the most beautiful to date, brilliantly colored, glued on plywood and secured with metal supporting frames. But by mid-week, Clint vanished again.

For some reason, Clint keeps getting kidnapped, destroyed or just disappears.

Jim thinks Justin should install Gabby Hayes, the funny sidekick cowboy on the mountainside. He says Gabby would still be standing in the hills because “nobody, not even a young ‘whippersnapper’ would steal Gabby Hayes.”

Susan James Carr
Glendale