Kittanning, Pennsylvania: Sam: Muffler Man Holding a Hamburger

Muffler man at Cadet Restaurant is alive and well. Has been rebuilt and is back in front of the restaurant holding a burger. Looks great! Stop in and sample the Cadet's American-made food.

"Sam" a muffler man who's been lying on his back for ten years since a car broke his leg, has been rehabilitated. The owner of the Cadet Restaurant, George Morda, plans to have Sam standing in front of the establishment in time for the Cadet's 50th anniversary. Sam has been undergoing reconstructive fiberglass work and painting, performed by an area auto restorer.

Sad to say, but I think the proprietor of the Kadet has removed his/her Muffler Man. When I was a kid, we used to drive past him -- he wore a hundred-gallon beige cowboy hat and white overalls, and held a huge, fabricated hamburger in his "up" hand -- almost every summer weekend on the way to our camp in Emlenton, PA. The Muffler Man marked the halfway point of the two-hour trip, so when we'd pass him my father would invariably announce, "OK, almost there now, boys. . . " We would groan at the thought of spending another hour all cramped up in the "half cab" of the hot pickup truck, driving at snail's pace through economically failing rural Pennsylvania towns like Petrolia, where route 38 wends its way through a massive, putrid-smelling jet-fuel distilling plant, and Parker, the self-declared "smallest city in the USA."