Land of the Giants

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Say, do you know the muffler man? Believe it or not, those oversized statues that dot the landscape every now and then are known as “muffler men.” A stop in Atlanta, Illinois took me to a number of these advertising relics that were prominent on Route 66. The three you see are…not all men! The middle giant is Lumi the Pie Girl, named after an award-winning pie maker. On the left is a Texaco muffler man. You may remember their old jingle, “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.” (See, kids, back in the old days, they were service stations, because you could get tires, oil changes, and other things there.) And, on the right, is Buynon. Yes, a deliberate misspelling in the name, to keep any lawsuits from happening. It was Bunyon’s Hot Dog Stand in Cicero, a Chicago suburb. Hamlet (yes, his real name, he was named for the play) Stephens owned the hot dog place until 2002, when he sold it. The new owners didn’t want it, so it was moved further down Route 66 to the town of Atlanta. Stephens died in 2012 at the age of 89. It was a fun stop in the “land of the giants” along the Mother Road. PHOTO COLLAGE: (Left) Texaco man (Middle) Lumi the Pie Girl (Right) Hot dog man from Bunyon’s