A Black Italian Angel with a Goiter Made of Stamps

Before I get started a gratuitous plug for my NEW website BACKOFFMUSTACHE.com 


Now on with the show already.

My last post was not convoluted due to subject matter, rather it clogged the pipeline with lack of thought flow. This load of travel memories is geared toward those of you who prefer pictures in their reading, pretty pictures to chop the endless rambling into digestible chunks.

Two black angels can be found in Iowa, both of which reside in bone yards wrapped in lore stoked by school children like Cousin Sara's sweet daughter Ellie. As a chubby high school shit my friends and I would sneak up to the Iowa City black angel in hopes of seeing the slightest bit of movement. Sadly the only movement was in our bowels as we ran screaming back to our car. Iowa City's angel is creepy both in sun and moonlight, Council Bluffs' black angel can be found on the opposite end of the spectrum. Little Ellie's nine year old smile grew when I said that the black angel was on my list of stops. She told me, "The lady under the angel saw it in three dreams and died after the last time. At night the angel flies around and goes into other people's dreams. If you see her fly you are going to die." Ellie's account of a swooping angel of death provided as much research as I needed. Her story left a macabre image in my gullible brain nugget, when in reality the Council Bluffs' black angel was an elegant turn of the century fountain built as an ode to a loving mother.

While soaking the black angel in from one of the handful of granite benches I popped open my treasured sketchbook to select my next stop. The closest oddity was home to presidential golf clubs, the Gerald Ford Mini Museum. I need not remind you that my only research into each attraction is by word of mouth or google maps as not to taint my initial reaction. My blackened mind imagined a shack with a Plexiglas enclosure protecting Mr. Ford's golf clubs from the greasy grasp of all ten annual visitors. The ATM never truly stopped at the museum, rather cruised by in disappointment that this was not a lame layover. Presidential grandeur screamed at me from the Young Republican sponsored rose garden. 

In need of bronzed tackiness I made like a fat lady on Black Friday and waddled as fast as my kankles could carry me to Omaha. There I discovered a Franco-American god, Chef Boyardee. He stands watch over the intersection of south 10th and Farnam. After lighting a candle fashioned from an old SpaghettiOs can I swung by the insane asylum grotto.

Why not end the day with a belly full of warm dryer lint? I mean fuzzies, with warm fuzzies in the form of Father Flanagan. He was a swell priest who swam against the grain of Catholic pedorasses. This fella founded a home for boys in 1912 that prepared its residents for the real world rather than turning them out into the cold after becoming of age. The home quickly grew into a 900 acre village with its own zip code, police force, self sustaining farm, schools and loads of dormitories known as Boys Town.

Without television or pads of i the inhabitants of Boys Town kept busy with wholesome fun like stamp collecting. So much so that an entire hall has been dedicated to the adhesive little slips of paper. Consuming the center of the hall are 4.65 million canceled stamps. 

Weighing in at 600 pounds this solid jumbo sphere is the World's Largest Ball of Stamps.

The Hall of History at the end of Flanagan Drive contains a chronological self guided tour of all things Boys Town. What may very well be the most impressive artifact is Spencer Tracy's Academy Award for portraying Father Flanagan in the 1938 movie Boys Town.

Be sure to bring your travel mug, tomorrow we will visit a percolating coffee pot big enough to brew 24 million cups of joe. 

A Rooster, a Fat Man and Two Hounds Walk into a Brothel

I broke my two-lane pact with the EPA to ensure a timely arrival at the Rooster and Hen's Compound. As I pulled into the gated bluff top fortress I spotted the nearly seven foot tall graying Ginger chopping wood faster than any Chattahoochee River beaver. The second my clod hit the pavement Rooster shot out a hoot, a holler and a big, "Chaddy Baby!" Hugs with proper crotch proximity were exchanged before we headed toward the first of five Rooster approved attractions. To offset my carbon footprint I hitched the old ATM to the hounds and had them pull us through the bluffs.

Not only is Rooster one of the funniest some bitches that ever shot shit, he has a gunny sack filled with historical gems specialized in Lewis and Clark mixed with the West. Just a hare under four miles from the safety of the Compound is the Lewis and Clark Monument Park. Nestled at the end of a winding hilltop lane are two semicircular monoliths etched with crisp text on the front and a swell relief on the reverse depicting Louie and Clarkster's introduction to the Otoe and Missouria Indians.

Are you still looking at those chunks of rock? Turn around Sally and fix those peepers on the Missouri River technicolor panorama behind you. I suggest standing next to the Rooster and having him describe points of interest: remnants of ravaging flood waters, a still submerged Lakeview Park, Eppley Airfield, Omaha's skyline, Union Pacific (UP) Rail Yard and a few horned owls.

Council Bluffs' love affair with UP is so steamy that they have conceived a museum with one another in an old Carnegie library. Two stories crammed full of goods that would make the Ames' brothers happier than the foreman of a freshly completed rail tunnel through the Rockies. More on the Ames' brothers and their pyramid in the middle of a Wyoming wasteland next week.

I only snapped two pics at the UP Museum, both of which would make the curator a bit pissy. Image UPM no.1 is of a ticket window with a sign taped to the security grate, "OUR TICKET AGENT WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AND IS HOSPITALIZED, WE HOPE TO GET HIM BACK SOON." Image UPM no.2 is of Bob Hope having a white ribbon pulled from his ass by a Hollywood starlet. Both items made the UP Museum well worth the free admission. Well, Rooster's commentary made every hilarious minute worth the price.

Image UPM no.1

Image UPM no.2

Council Bluffs' decommissioned rotary county jail with the killer moniker of Squirrel Cage is an acorn toss away from the UPM. The three story cylinder would rotate until the needed cell lined up with the jailer's platform. When the Rooster and I peaked our heads through the door a nice woman leaned from her office chair and asked if we would like to tour the jail. We gave an enthusiastic YES. She replied with, "That will be $14." After pushing my eyes back into their sockets and picking up my jaw we returned with a, "No thank you," while exiting the building. The Rooster and I agreed that for the $14 admission we surely would have received at the very least a handjob.

As we tooled around the bluffs four terrible images tore their way into the Rooster's brain and luckily for us all of them reside on the 24th Street Bridge above I-80. Odyssey is a $3.5 million tetraptych which was designed under the guise of welcoming travelers to Council Bluffs.

The only thing that these four atrocities succeed at is creating a sense of confusion, an air of negativity and misleading Midwesterners into thinking that all public art is shit.

Our final stop was at Omaha's famed Lauritzen Gardens to experience a magical land filled with model trains that zip between miniature specimen trees. Sadly this attraction forced me to break my one and only Operation Decompression rule; I PAID $7.

Each of the 100 acres are as manicured as the finest of a green thumbed OCD sufferer. A low flying crop duster must have been loaded with work by Omaha based artist Jun Kaneko, the remnants of a Berlin style airlift were left throughout in the form of bronze heads and Dangos (jumbo ceramic pieces). The sculptures compliment their surroundings in a wonderful "One of these these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong" type of way.

UP loves to create attractions with their logos plastered on every surface. If they didn't pour wheelbarrows of cash into them it would be annoying. In comparison the immense size of the gardens this postage stamp attraction was by far the most amazing. The Rooster and I could have spent the rest of the day watching the trains and trolleys zip through the trees past replicas of famous Omahanian landmarks of past and present.

Every structure is constructed of sticks, twigs, branches, twist ties and other natural materials.

If you were to say that these amazing models weren't amazing you would be a damn liar. The only thing missing was my blue and white striped conductor hat. Rooster let me sit on his shoulders to get this shot up in the trees.

Our final vignette contained a replica of the Japanese Sunpu Castle Gate and of Mt. Fuji. Since my rotund chub will likely never climb the real Fuji, I scurried up this mound of earth while the Rooster stood guard at its foot to keep watch and make a crow call when the fuzz approached.

This will be the last post for this week since the two-lanes are calling. I plan on returning next week with more goods for your pleasure.