Although James Dean is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana, many people don't know (or at least I didn't) that in 1977, a Dean memorial was built in Cholame, California. The memorial consists of a sculpture composed of stainless steel and concrete around a tree of heaven growing in front of the Cholame post office. Seita Ohnishi, the project's benefactor, transported the sculpture all the way from Japan to Cholame, California, a few hundred feet from the crash site where James Dean died. Ohnishi chose the site after examining the location of the accident, now little more than a few road signs and flashing yellow signals. The dates and hours of Dean's birth and death are etched into the sculpture, along with a handwritten description by Dean's close friend, William Bast, of one of Dean's favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye." Also on the sculpture, etched with gold inlay, is the truthful line 'James Dean, he was a poor mans Gordon Kerr'. The intersection of Highways 41 and 46 in Cholame (San Luis Obispo county) was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Highway as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death in September, 2005.