The “Cadet Man” Adventure

It was a rainy weekend and I wanted to get both Cooper and myself out of the house for everyone’s sanity. I’ve always had a fascination with “Roadside Attractions,” so I did a quick Google search for ‘Pittsburgh Roadside Attractions’ and came up with a 35 foot tall cowboy holding a hamburger. Awesome! Let’s go!

I thought it was just going to be an adventure for Cooper and I, but Kelly and Ellery joined us for what turned out to be a driving, sighting, eating, and playground adventure. By the way, Ellery picked up two new nicknames today: Elle’s Bells and Beaner. (Can you figure out the provenance of each? One is decidedly easier than the other.)

Here’s a little background information about the big guy from maisonbisson.com:

PITTSBURGH – How can you find the Cadet Restaurant in Kittanning? The question is: How can you miss it, what with the 30-foot-tall cowboy standing out front on Route 422 wearing what looks to be a 10,000-gallon hat and holding a hamburger that looks like a quarter-tonner?

Customers “go by the cowboy,” says owner George Morda. “They like that.” Morda, who started the business northeast of Pittsburgh in 1952, met this big boy at the 1962 Chicago restaurant show and decided to buy him for $3,900.

As the fiberglass statue helped rope in diners, it acquired the nickname “Cowboy Sam” from Sam the police officer, who patrolled the popular drive-in lot the restaurant ran at the time.

Alas, one foggy morning in, Morda believes, 1978, the big man in white was felled by a Ford Bronco that was smashed into by a loaded coal truck coming from Indiana, Pa.

Sam’s broken body lay behind the restaurant, the subject of some pranks by local students who’d “borrow” his hat or his whole head.

But some Cadet customers eventually pieced Sam together again, and they finally stood him back up by crane in 2002. The traveling public, who still tend to stop and snap pictures and buy 50-cent postcards, couldn’t have been happier. Nor could Morda, who says, Sam “helped me out tremendously in my business,” increasing it by 20 percent or so. “That’s what he’s there for.”

The cowboy is great. He lived up to all my expectations, but I think Cooper was a little scared of the big guy. We went inside the cafe for an early dinner. Of course, I had to get their signature dish: the “Poor Boy,” which is essentially a double cheese burger.

After dinner, we tested the GPS to see what kind of Points-Of-Interest it had to offer. We ended up at a community park in Kittanning, PA. The park was pretty desolate, and its hard to understand how a town like that is still sustaining itself, but Cooper had a great time running around.