A potato that looked like Bob Hope was recently discovered in South Dakota. No, no, really. A Ms. Katie Kelly found it sitting in a wooden potato bin at a noticeably unremarkable Piggly Wiggly supermarket. She keeps a copy of The Global Reporter that covered the story in her linen closet as proof. The bizarre kicker? That distinguished journal was found in the same Piggly Wiggly in which she found her prized, now dehydrated, potato.

I’m not kidding.

Then there was the image of Merv Griffin found in a condensation ring. Edie French knew the face but couldn’t come up with the name. But she saw someone smiling a “Hey, remember me?” grin from under her tomato juice glass in a diner in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The manager thought it was Robert Loggia. The hostess offered Tracy Ullman. No one knew who Tracy Ullman was.

We humans see all kinds of things in all kinds of things. But the largest palate for those types of images lives right here in Adirondack Park: knotty pine.

Our walls (and floors and ceilings and cabinets and garages and she-sheds and workshops) are literally covered with “Holy cow, I see …” images, thanks to the gifts of knotty pine and an open mind. Who hasn’t seen one knot as the elephant’s eye and those other two knots as its nostrils at the end of its trunk?

You just have to fill it in some.

They can be disturbing: the Creature From the Black Lagoon on my bedroom ceiling still keeps me awake nights. They can be silly: Minnie Mouse never wore a samurai uniform, did she? They’re the very definition of random … grasshoppers, angry bankers, rusted wrenches, koala bears. Or they can be missed: My brother can’t (or won’t) acknowledge any of it. Luckily his 8-year-old daughter is a pro (neener-neener).

Which leads us to an important distinction: those who see it, and those who don’t. Or, perhaps more accurately, those who will, and those who won’t.

The ability to see those images seems to be age-related (OK, sometimes vodka-related). But at what age do we STOP seeing them? I’m 65, and I still see them. I hope I’m still seeing them when I move on from this world.

To that point, I’ve asked my wife to bury me in a knotty pine coffin. That way I can spend eternity finding images and asking heavenly friends to join in the hunt. Because, y’know, I’m sure the wonders of heaven can get old after a few thousand centuries or so.

Just a thought.

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Jack Cardone is a resident of Piercefield. He’s retired after working as a creative director at a major New York City advertising agency for over 40 years. He can be reached at jackcardone28@gmail.com.