Friday afternoon, Hiram and I drove through Blue Earth, Minnesota. We were on the way to Pipestone for my aunt’s funeral visitation. Boy, was I surprised when I looked out the window and saw the Jolly Green Giant statue east of Highway 169. Hiram was willing to turn around so I could get a picture of the statue for my blog, but time was at a premium so I told him to keep driving. In a few minutes, we were on I-90, speeding west.
But the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because we didn’t turn back for the picture, but because of the hoax the Green Giant uppity-ups have perpetrated on America since I was a kid. What’s the hoax? There’s no valley around the Green Giant. The land around Blue Earth, and along the central portion of the Iowa-Minnesota boarder is flat as flat.
When I was a kid, I had no idea the Green Giant people were so close by. I thought they were California or Washington D.C. or Wall Street schysters, where according to the newspapers, everybody’s crooked. But this hoax came from the midwest, from honest, hardworking western European farming stock. This truth-stretching was done by people who could be members of my family. I want to know who from the midwest had enough imagination to create the advertising jingle that permeated my childhood and ruined my southern Minnesota geography paradigm, not to mention possessed enough artistic sensitivity to paint the beautiful but absolutely inaccurate scene above.
To combat the renegades contributing to the deterioration of our nation’s moral fiber, I’m thinking of a new career in investigative food-related, advertising myth debunking journalism. How’s that for specialization? There’s a future in it. Think of all the children I can save from food and geography misinformation.
Once the Green Giant scandal hits the front page of the New York Times, I know what to investigate next – the Keebler Elves. There’s something about that hollow tree that doesn’t quite ring true. Can’t put my finger on it just yet, but I will.
