As a bit of a postscript to from one of my other blogs, and to kick off National Chimney Safety Week, I present a new friend I made on the road.
The giant Chimney Sweep Statue greets people on I-135 between Wichita and McPherson, Kansas. He's a striking site that comes out of nowhere while you're in the middle of nowhere. His roguish smile and Dick Van Dyke-esque demeanor conveys a sense of old school chimney sweepery that is sadly missing in our modern world of dirty smoke stacks.
However, as many people do, he started out in a different industry before his career change:
Happy Chef is/was a chain of restaurants in the Midwest that each had Happy Chef statues out front greeting hungry travelers with a smile and a spoon. They also had a button you could push to hear the Happy Chef give you, what I assume was, a happy message.
Sadly most chefs are gone but some have been re-purposed like our friend here. If you're one the road in the middle of Kansas, stop by and say "hi."
