Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993 TAG: 9310130251
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Big Boy is the fat, cherubic mascot of the chain of restaurants that bear - or give him - his name. Out front of each of the burger outlets stands a fiberglass Big Boy, holding high a bunned burger. His hair is eternally combed in a Wally-and-Beaver wave, his freckled chipmunk-chubby cheeks permanently spread in a wide grin, his trousers perpetually checkered.
No sooner had the Big Boy restaurant opened on U.S. 460 in 1991 than Big Boy was torn from his moorings and spirited away under cover of darkness. He was saved only when a witness saw three men carrying Big Boy down Jennelle Road at about 2 o'clock in the morning.
This raised serious questions about why any witness would be on Jennelle Road at that hour, but we all benefited from the wanderer's odd hours. Realizing they'd been spotted, the abductors dropped Big Boy and bolted.
It was a crime against all humanity and rich in symbolism because Big Boy is a throwback to another, more innocent era. In Big Boy's world, it's OK to be fat and OK to eat red meat and OK to wear suspenders and to let your mom comb your hair.
Kidnap that, and you kidnap all that was good with the world before it went to hell.
The terrorists never were apprehended. Big Boy, appraised at $2,500 in good condition, was treated for cheek and brow lacerations and returned to his post within a few days.
As Big Boys go, and they don't usually go far, the Blacksburg Big Boy was a sort of Patty Hearst. His fling with the Symbionese Liberation Army lasted only a few hours, but it made Big Boy a celebrity.
He returned to civilian life, watching traffic course past on 460, inviting hungry passersby with his all-weather fiberglass hamburger.
But last month, the 7-foot-tall cherubic burger bearer hung up his spatula for good. The restaurant closed.
For the second time in as many years, Big Boy vanished.
When the place reopened a couple of days later, it had metamorphosed into Our House Restaurant.
No franchise, no Big Boy.
Left behind were only a concrete slab and some treated lumber, painful reminders of where Big Boy once stood sentinel.
"He's in storage," says Herbert Alcorn, the owner of the restaurant in both the Big Boy and post-Big Boy eras. "I'm sure they'll want him back."
Based in Warren, Mich., the restaurant chain keeps close tabs on its Big Boys.
Big Boy eventually will be dispatched to some other restaurant. There are 920 or so other Big Boys; when one of their Big Boys goes off line for routine maintenance or repairs, the Blacksburg Big Boy will be dispatched to fill in.
Fare thee well, Big Boy. We hardly knew ye.
by CNB