Have you ever stumbled across a Muffler Man in your travels? Roadside America has an entire web portal dedicated to tracking the elusive giants, which can be found in almost all of the lower 48 states.
Technically, this guy in the photo to the right is considered a "lumberjack" or "Bunyan" -- a subspecies of the classic Muffler Man. You probably didn't know it, but there's a diverse fiberglass ecosystem out there along the nation's highways and byways. You've got Uniroyal Gals, Happy Halfwits, Big Chiefs, and some strange mutants.
This bad boy towers over the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds in Crownsville, Maryland. I snapped this shot two years ago [almost to the day].
Sadly, there are no known Muffler Men here in Alaska. Probably for the best. The environmentalists would be complaining that they frightened the caribou during breeding season.
I can't say I'd blame them -- having one of these monsters look in on you would be a total mood killer.
This is Big John. According to some of the locals in Metropolis, Illinois he's been holding up those groceries for years. "He's like the Atlas of the grocery bagger world." Coming from a nineteen year old guy hanging out with his drinking buddies in the car wash parking lot at two in the morning, that's a profound quote. I wasn't expecting a reference to Greek mythology when I stopped to ask directions.
They told me that Big John was wearing an apron because some prankster with a ladder and a can of spray paint rendered the fiberglass fellow anatomically correct. And for the record, he was "Big John" before that incident.
Metropolis is home to a fifteen foot tall statue of Superman, found just down the street from their thirty foot tall grocery bagger. When asked who'd win a fight, it was Big John all the way. One of the guys in Metropolis had recently moved from California, and he did step in to defend the Man of Steel. "He's the better surfer."
The debate raged on in the car wash parking lot on a hot summer night. Who gets the girls? Evenly split, although one lad mentioned that Big John is "just here for the chicks." As for weaknesses, no one could come up with an Achilles' Heel for the grocery guy. And I didn't bother to ask if they knew what an Achilles' Heel was. The ditzy blonde, who was still wearing her cheerleading outfit after practice [or cheerleading camp] that day, didn't even know what Kryptonite was. "Is that some sort of candy?"
With that, we were off towards Memphis, Tennessee.
More on Big John and his hombres at Roadside America.
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