Welcome
to my leetle Adventures page. This is for to chronicle adventures, roadtrips,
etcetera.
Happy Chef, as you may
or may not know, is a Midwestern restaurant chain. These particular
restaurants are guarded
by a large fiberglass Chef wearing a white jacket, pants, shirt, orange
vest, black tie, white
chef hat, and brandishing a wooden spoon. We guesstimate him to be
anywhere from 15-20
feet tall. He is, to say the least, awe-inspiring. How, you
may ask, does one learn
about the fate of the Great Chef? I will tell you. My cousin and I were
messing around , typing in sites and doing searches on the web, and I said
"Hey...try www.happychef.com." Cousin Neal did, and heck afire, there was
a page for the sacred fiberglass man! "Oho," said I, "Let me email them,
for I have not seen a standing Chef in quite some time. They took the last
one down, the one off I-80 over by Sapp Brothers. I was much bereaved."
And so it came to pass that I mailed the good people at www.happychef.com,
asking where I could find other standing Chefs. I explained that I had
done a 'photographic essay'
featuring the Chef and
was much chagrined to find him gone in the fall of 1995. Fate smiled
upon me three days later,
when I received email from someone at the Happy Chef headquarters.
He informed me that
out of roughly 50 restaurants (Happy Chef is a regional chain), only 5
Chefs remain to guard
the restaurants with their ever-watchful eye(s).
I was overjoyed, you
know, after living with such fear for so very long, never knowing if I'd
ever see the huge
Mr. Chef again. You
would be anxious, too, if you were me, but apparently you're not.
Happy Chef!
That's roughly what I said. Since there aren't
any scanned pictures yet of the Chef, you'll have to take it on faith
that I say "Happy Chef" in orange for a reason.
The Chef wears an orange vest which is only a couple shades
darker than the very orange you see.
 |
That's him...! That's the first Chef we
visited, there in Cherokee, Iowa. At the bottom of the picture you can
discern Neal, Cousin Extraordinaire, mimicking his newfound idol. |
 |
Here you see a close-up of Neal's first
imitative gestures of Mr. Chef. Excuse the blur; in the absence of a scanner
I have digitally photgraphed and captured some snapshots. At least you
get the *impression*, chiddren. |
 |
This is part of my initial "photo essay" on
Happy Chef in 1995.
This Chef stood guard over an abandoned Happy
Chef restaurant not far from Omaha, Nebraska. He vanished shortly
after this picture was taken. |
 |
Another I-80 Nebraska Chef shot. Note
the white fingernails. |
 |
Near-contact between the mortal and immortal
one day in 1995. |
I just found some ramblings
about Happy Chef. I was in the Language Lab at UNL when I did these.
I was hyper and bored at the same time.
You've lost me. Don't waste
my danged time or something.