On January 7, 2014. Ray Carr of Cleveland’s WCSB 89.3 did a phone interview with me about Muffler Men for his radio show. His program features in-depth, live interviews with movers-and-shakers: politicians, journalists, athletes, and guys like me who are into Americana. He also features unusual oldies and comedy interludes from the 1950s and 1960s.

I asked if I could put the interview on the American Giants  blog. He agreed to that so I  decided to go the extra mile and added video to the audio. So above is the enhanced Ray Carr interview. Ray is going to check back with me from time to time to catch up with my latest adventures. The next interview is scheduled for March 4, 2014 on Cleveland’s WCSB 89.3 at 8:00 AM.

In Episode #6, our American Giants crew continues to make its way around the Chicago area visiting Muffler Men. We start out at the Greenhouse of Crystal Lake and hop over to Lumberjacks, a firewood and mulch business. You will see the Muffler Man that we used for our American Giants Opener and find out some of its history. We end this episode at Lambs Farm in Libertyville and realize just how long this 15 foot tall lumberjack has been around!

After a few delays I’m finally releasing a partial version of episode #4. On this segment of the trip we deviate off route 66 to visit one of the rare female versions of muffler men found in Peoria, IL. She is known as Vanna Whitewall and has stood at Plaza Tire since the 1960’s . We were able to talk with Terry Swisher and find out about her history and hear some of her stories over the years. She is unique in the fact that her outfit is changed out twice a year to coincide with the seasons and she also still has her original International Fiberglass platform. From there we traveled on to visit the Gemini Giant in Wilmington, IL but this section of the episode has been cut out until I can get in contact with the owners and do some fact checking and permissions.