A number of years ago, Erie, Pennsylvania decided that it needed to boost its tourism by commissioning area businesses to decorate big identically shaped sculptures that would then be placed all around the city.
The first year was fish. The fish were ugly and the only people who cared about them and drove around taking pictures were the natives. Then the city decided to try again, this time, inexplicably, with frogs. I mean, fish make sense. Erie, obviously, borders Lake Erie, and Lake Erie sports a number of fish, which people are finally beginning, slowly, to be able to eat, though it's still not terribly recommendable; the lake spontaneously combusted in places near Cleveland in the 70s due to the industrial waste dumped into the water, and although the environmentalists have done fabulous work cleaning it up, most people who live in Erie won't eat Erie fish.
Nonetheless, fish make a certain kind of sense. But frogs? I never understood. It's not that we don't have frogs; of course we do; but we're not known for frogs, frogs don't make the City of Erie remarkable in any way, so why frogs?
Oh well. Unsolved mystery. Anyway, while the fish were unattractive and humdrum and not very noteworthy, the frogs were simply scary. I spent one of my college breaks after the unveiling of the Frogs from the Nine Levels of Hell driving around Erie with my arm over my face. Apparently, where fish fail to inspire, the local businesses found the frogs to be perfect to display the essence of the fearsome and disturbing.
Shortly after that college break I returned to Grove City, where nothing scary lives beyond townies and cows, and then I received an email from my father. An evil email from my evil father. He just found it in his outbox and after five years decided I needed to read it again.
Here it is.
***
Hello, Sarah!!!
I REMEMBER YOU!!!!!
My friends want you to know
Don't worry
We'll see you in your dreams, tonight!!!
BWUHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
***
I mean, what the frick.
I mean, what the frick.
2 comments:
Sarah, I was in Erie over Thanksgiving weekend and I went to Splash Lagoon. I think (and I'm not certain of this) that those fish you were talking about are now part of the Splash Lagoon display. Some of them were kind of cool. I saw one frog... but I'm thinking it wasn't part of the public arts thingy. Do you know if those fish are the ones?
They probably are. I haven't seen them myself -- it's been a lonnnng time since I hit the town here -- but if they were really big and all painted and stuff, they're probably the ones. After awhile some of them were collected off the public thoroughfares and displayed together in different places, so yes, I believe you can say you've seen the fish and one frog.
Hope you had a great visit to Erie!
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