A bird for all seasons

Sharon Graham has become something she never expected: The Rooster Lady.

She earned the title because of the elaborate costumes and decorations she dresses the stone rooster stature in her front yard at 3749 Montevallo Road for every holiday and occasion.

"I just put the rooster out there, and I didn't think a thing about it, she said. "I just decorated it."

Now she says she must always have some outfit on the rooster because people have come to expect it, and even driver her way to see it.

"If it's naked even for a morning or a day then people will say 'I made a special point to drive by the rooster and it wasn't dressedd up," Graham said. "Or 'I almost got in a wreck today looking at the rooster.'"

The rooster always has an appropriate outfit for whatever time of year it is. Right now, he is dressed in football attire and will soon have on an orange wig and pumpkin hat for Halloween.

“Well [the costumes] range from all the holidays of course -- Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day- all the holidays,” Graham said.

“The most bizarre [costume] I have is for New Year’s Eve. I have a lamp shade with tassels all over it and it’s decorated and I put that on the rooster,” she said. “The joke was ‘He got so drunk he put the lamp shade on his head,’ so for New Year’s I put the lamp shade on his head. But I do have to explain that one to a lot of young people.”

Graham says the rooster even gets letters and gifts from people.

“I get letters to the rooster from children, and I’ve gotten two gifts to the rooster. One, when I decorated it for my first grandchild, someone left a baby gift by the rooster, and then another time a lady gave a little metal rooster to the rooster with a note saying ‘I go to work every day and it just makes me happy to see the rooster.’ And that’s what all the letters say,” Graham said.

The rooster has become a neighborhood staple and something that can bring a smile to anyone passing by. Graham says she just started decorating it for fun because she decorates everything.

“If I see something I’m going to decorate it, it can’t just sit there plain,” she said.

The rooster was stolen one Labor Day weekend a year after they moved into the Montevallo Road house.

“My husband came home and said the rooster’s gone,” Graham said. “I just happened to be down at the beach on Labor Day where I bought the rooster so I could replace it.”

The rooster hasn’t been bothered since then, and is consistently dressed in an appropriate outfit for whatever occasion.

Graham says she has several Christmas outfits for the rooster and she decorates him with baby things whenever a child is born into their family.

“People are always walking by,” she said. “If I’m out getting the mail people always stop and tell me they love the rooster. I’m known as the rooster lady now. I never thought I’d be the rooster lady.”

If you’re driving or walking down Montevallo Road, be sure to look out for the dressed up rooster that has a special place in the Mountain Brook area.