I had an odd line of thought triggered this mornin’ – wandering through a city park enjoying the first snow of the season, I happened across a genuine Municipal Bronze Statue which, upon inspection, turned out to have been erected in memorial to – ‘The Inventor of Dental Anesthesia’.
Unable to turn a blind eye to numbing irony, I’d like to invite submissions for the “First Annual ‘Silliest Memorial Statues (or other notable commemorations) Of All Time’ Contest.”
Judging will, of course, be completely arbitrary. Please limit submissions to real memorials, though pure fiction (if acknowledged) will be considered for ‘Honorable Mention’ prizes to be announced later. First Prize will be an autographed pillow yet to be chosen, assumin’ there’s ever a winner over in that other thread . . .
Dr. Watson
“Meanwhile, the sun has slowly expended yet another day’s energy to no apparent avail.”
There’s a dentist school nearby that has a bronze statue of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man. It seems that Robert studied to become a dentist, but he was making so much doing appearances that he never had to practice. I don’t recall if he actually finished the dentistry training; his hands ended up so damn big he would have had a hard time actually working on patients anyway. - MC
In downtown Cincinnati there’s a lovely litle parklike boulevard with a a statue of President Garfield mounted on a horse. (I’m a native Ohioan and haven’t the slightest idea of anything notable Garfield ever did, but somehow martial and mounted pomp doesn’t seem too likely.)
Anyway, each Halloween the head (of the Prez, not the horse) sports a huge, orange Garfield The Cat mask. There’s a certain surreal cheer to it: the banal masked by the banal.
Yeah, that statue was really made.
They kept it at the Art Museum for awhile. Then the Art Museum people decided it was taking up valuable real estate, so they wanted to move it. Peope were in a huff. They thought the Art Museum was being “Snobby”. Now its were it belongs, in front of the Spectrum in South Philly.
Well, thats were it was the last time I was there. They might have moved it since they built that new monstrosity.
Oh well. Thats my eight grade memory of the events. So, take it with a rather large grain of salt.
On the note of Silly Statues. There is one in DC, where there is a statue pretty much on every corner, dedicated to the Inventor of the Screw Torpedo. Or something like that. Anyway, its written around the base, so if you don’t keep reading it looks like he is the inventor of the screw. Which leads me to wonder how people procreated before that time.
They named a public toilet after Howard Stern? Certainly that must rate at least an ‘Honorable Mention’. But so far I’ve gotta say the ‘Screw Torpedo’ inventor has my vote.
Jois – Thank ye kindly for the plug, but I’m afraid that my only personal contribution towards raising the general intelligence level of the populace has been to have children. (The SN results from a one-in-a-million cosmic happenstance, a ‘bolt from the heavens’ if you will, in which the current object of my affections turned out to be named Crick. One should never interfere with the inevitable.)
Dr. Watson
“Clever Lines Dept. Closed For Maintenance.”
Hmmm, well I don’t think this rates with the Boll Weevil, but didn’t Cecil mention in an article that some big spinach producing city has a Popeye monument?
“I’m the luckiest man in the world, now that Lou Gehrig is dead.” Homer Simpson
I don’t know if this compares, but in a tiny township in New Zealand called Gore (near the township of Clinton, if you can believe it) there are three memorials. One is a giant fibreglass trout. One is a concrete sheep. And one is a giant mural of the Creamoata Man, an outdated cereal mascot cartoon figure. All on one intersection of town.
We have one of those Muffler Men right in our town. It stands up in front of a putt-putt golf course. Am I the only one who thinks these things are just plain ugly?
In Idaho Springs, CO (home of BeauJo’s mountain pies) there is a statue of Steve Canyon, from the comic strip. Seems the valley IdSpgs is in is actually named “Steve Canyon”