Big Time with Big Jim

Miss Me? Firstly, Candy, I'm so sorry for no Friday Five last week, but I was busy spending a beautiful day in the park with your children instead of withering in front of the robot machine. I have no apologies.

And so, there will soon, I'm sure, be writing about the rest of the trip home, but for today, I thought I'd share the story of Big Jim!

In March, I got this email from Ferris:

Sad. I don't think I've ever given the thing a second thought, up until when they said it won't be there anymore.

http://www.postgazette.com/pg/07081/771527-55.stm

To which Pookie replied:

Ferris, I guess we'll have to buy it. Then load it on a flatbed truck and take it on a cross country roadtrip called "Go West, Big Jim< -- Go West."

Now, all we need is $10,000 each......

To which Ferris replied:

We'll cross the country with it, finding out a lot about ourselves and America along the way. Finally, upon arriving in San Francisco, Big Jim becomes a gay icon, but during its triumphant (yet ill advised) parade down Lombard Street it teeters over and kills Joel. James, in a fit of anger, curses the day the steel giant was ever created; the statue gains sentience and in a fit of remorse, throws itself into the Bay. It is never seen again, and James ends his days working in a coal mine.

And then, a couple of weeks later...

BIG JIM IS SAVED:
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/07088/773514-100.stm

And so on Saturday we're sitting at my mom's house and we're all like, "Hey, Ferris, what do you want to do today for your birthday?"

And he's all like, "I want to go find the Big Jim statue and worship it."

Surely he did. So first we drive to where the Big Jim statue originally lived hoping, beyond hope, that perhaps he had not been moved yet. He had been moved. We then drive all the way through Charleroi, the town where Big Jim had resided, to see if he had been moved to a central park area or something. We have no luck.

I wrote that last paragraph like driving through Charleroi took us hours, but in reality driving through the entire length of Charleroi takes less than 10 minutes. At the end, disheartened and sad, we pull over to the Cougar Mini Mart. What shall we do? Almost twenty minutes into our quest, we've failed to find Big Jim.

So, the average age of a citizen of Jesus Land in Western Pennsylvania is about 115 years old. Pookie and I roll into the Cougar Mart (named, by the way, for the team mascot at the local high school) to ask if anybody knows where Big Jim is. There are two people in the Cougar Mart. The woman behind the counter (balding) and the woman buying her lottery tickets (old). We get in line to ask our question. It's at that point, that the woman buying the lottery tickets realizes that one of her FIFTEEN LOTTERY TICKETS has been misprinted not using the super secret lottery number that she wanted. What do you do in this situation if you are the lottery ticket purchaser or the woman behind the counter? Do you say to the old lady and her lotto tickets, "Just give me one moment to help those two people standing behind you and then we'll work out." NO! You proceed to spread ALL FIFTEEN LOTTERY TICKETS OUT ON THE COUNTER and then start tediously going through them with the old woman while Pookie and I stand there with our mouths open.

Fortunately, at that moment, a man who was roughly 115 years old and holding a respirator in his hand comes in and gets in line behind us.

Pookie to Said Man
Have you lived here your whole life?

And at the time, it was a nice intro, though, you know, OBVIOUSLY. The man explains to us that the Big Jim statue has been moved to Bentleyville. We return to the car to suggest a trip to Bentleyville. Ferris is like, "Do we really want to drive all the way to Bentleyville?"

Again, this is said like this is some kind of trek. IT'S A TEN MINUTE DRIVE. We, of course, begin this ten minute drive with Ferris pulling his hybrid out in front of an 18-wheeler that was speeding down the highway at 80 miles an hour and literally CAME WITHIN FEET OUR OUR BUMPER. Ferris' response to this?

"This may be it, people."

I mean, and really, we were pretty close to death there.

And we turn into Bentleyville, and...THERE'S BIG JIM. In a park? No! In a town square? No! On a pastoral hill somewhere? No!

IN FRONT OF THE BENTLEYVILLE BEST WESTERN. You know it. You can't even take a picture of this piece of history without a Best Western sign in front of it.

You can see all of the pictures here. And you should look at them. But here are my four favorites:


Big Jim: Ass Up to the Sunlight


Ladies love Big Jim.


Gunslingers!


Go West, bitches.

I end with a haiku.

Big Jim. Such a man.
Balls of steel. Literally.
Bentleyville icon.