Big Miner and Burro

Albany, Oregon

Local businessman Steve Fletcher, who ran a spray foam business and lived in a spray foam volcano house, built a big miner and burro for a local auto dealership. Out of -- you guessed it -- spray foam. We've observed that spray foam is ideal for quick, bulbous constructions, but when its painted facade is breached by damage or weather a brownish canker sore appears, and it only gets worse with age.

The lumpy miner and burro still fared pretty well (when we stopped by in 2011), atop a pole in the parking lot, safely out of the way of vandals and confused drivers. The miner has a huge holstered sidearm, and for some reason wears a sheriff's star. The braying burro carries a miner's pan and a giant corked jug marked with an X.

Albany was settled by farmers, not gold miners, so perhaps the statue is meant to show a 49-er returning north from the gold fields of California, battered, probably broke, but happy to be home.