The latest cultural phenomenon from the heartland is dressed-up lawn geese.
"Every time I think the topic is dead," art historian Cecie Chewning told the Cincinnati Enquirer, "I get a call to give a talk." Chewning delivered the scholarly address "Goose Getups" at a meeting of the Popular Culture Association at Ohio's Bowling Green State University.The practice of putting clothes on statues of geese used for lawn decoration is said to have originated in western Kentucky, spread to Indiana in the 1980s and thereafter to Greater Cincinnati. Most of the fowl are dressed by individuals, but some are passed from neighbor to neighbor in subdivisions, or maintained on the lawns of businesses and factories.
- Leah Garchik