The Midwest's Undercurrent of Weirdness

I remember my moving in 1991 to quaint little Westerville, Ohio and realizing that, in the Midwest, all is not necessarily as it seems. A hardware store had a Sunday sale, but not a normal sale. At 3 o'clock, you got free candy if you came to the sale on a pogo stick. At 4 o'clock, you got 10% off if you came on a horse. And it got worse: the ancient little diner "downtown" had a menu that defied belief. Imagine a spaghetti omelet--yes, we're talking about a three-egg omelet with spaghetti and tomato sauce inside, like something out of, I don't know-- perhaps Alien.

The strangest part of the US Midwest's undercurrent of weirdness is not just that they have some weird things. The strangest part is that they choose extremely weird things to render weird. I post today because today I uncovered a few more weirdnesses (photo evidence via the link below):

• Illinois' obsession with big blocks of concrete in the wrong places.
• Belaboring the obvious.
• Going to great expense to place public works (hydrants, etc.) in utterly inexplicable locations.

Even animals get in the act. For photos (220 KB, less than a minute by phone modem), take the link immediately below...

First: Let's get the Illinois wasted-huge-concrete-blocks thing out of the way.

This is a large block of concrete, approximately 5 feet / 150 cm on a side. This puts its weight at something like 9 tons. There are no man-made structures anywhere near and no roads to it, so unless it was dropped from an airplane, someone went to a lot of trouble to put it here. They also felt moved to paint its sides black, which I find especially thoughtful.
 

And as a service to those who might avoid parks and countryside, Illinois provides concrete-waste madness in the cities, too, summarily dumping mountains of the stuff right in major roads.
 

Americans worship cars, yes, but Illini--they worship car washes. I mean what better fulfills the Spirit of America than a clean car?
 

Of the Midwest's weirdnesses, none is more fetching than their penchant for, well, belaboring the obvious. Now, I need you to tell me the purpose of this sign. And it gets worse...on the small valve cover (near the hydrant's base) is printed: WATER.
 

Uh--no kidding.
 

In this panoramic nature photo, the red dot in the middle is a fire hydrant. I did not make this up (it's 500 feet west of Bartlett Road, a half-mile north of Bartlett.) I marvel at the cost of placing a hydrant in the middle of a large field, and realize that I don't always feel at home on this planet.
 

Speaking of things being in the wrong place: this very alive Canadian goose mother-to-be recently decided to nest in this bucket at the front door of a sandwich shop. It's great when the local ladies admire the cute wooden model and then scream when it turns its head and honks.