Football and Squirrels and Flying Pigs?

For those of you living in cellars with no radio or television, it may have slipped past your notice that the Super Bowl is nearly upon us. Football with an oblong ball, muscly men wearing shoulder pads and helmets. A fair amount of swearing and Gatorade drenching. I love football, have for as long as I can remember.

Football plays double-duty in our house – we’re fans, but DH is also a broadcaster so in the fall on Friday nights he can be found broadcasting high school football games, talking to coaches and players and generally re-living his youth. Yeah, football plays a big part in our home in the fall.

I'll never forget taking bebe to her first professional game. RadioMan has been a Bengals fan (don’t laugh, he’s serious about his love of the Orange and Black…just ask any of the stress animals he’s destroyed over the years) forever,

As we were driving downtown Cincinnati we noticed a curious thing: pigs. Not your normal, small, pink, cute piglets. Ginormous, statuary painted in a way that might make some psychedelic 1960s refugees throw up in their coffees. And some of them had wings. I can only assume that those pigs, so horrified at their paint jobs, decided it was time to fly the coop. Unfortunately wings don’t react well to cement.  They’re still stuck there.

In all seriousness, the pigs are kind of cute. Except the one that reminded me of Darth Vader. That one I’m still trying to forget. So we asked a few people about the pigs. Why were they made? What is the connection between Cincinnati and pigs? What gives? Most people shrugged and went on their way. We gave up.

Then, after leaving the game we decided to go for ice cream. Graeter’s is a Cincinnati thing. It’s the

most awesomest ice cream. Ever. You will not convince me otherwise. The nearest Graeter’s to our hotel was in one of the suburbs…in which we were shocked to find strangely painted (and some with wings), ginormous squirrels. Pigs. Squirrels. We asked around again. No one knew.

I know cities commission these types of statues for various events. I get that. Our town, on Lake Erie, as lighthouses all over the place. That fits – city on the lake, lighthouses. I want to know the connection between these cities and squirrels and pigs, though…I mean, is Cincinnati know for its pigs?!?

So, readers, my question – what is the strangest city-statuary you’ve seen?