“Chip fought the wind,” a banner read. “The wind won.”
“Chip’s last words: ‘I’ll be back.’ “
“Please send: duct tape & hope.”
That banner just about turned true Thursday, when hope, paint, drilling and a lot of teamwork brought the popular “Giant Chip” statue back to life outside a Lehigh Valley ice cream shop.
After hours of work, the Chip statue’s torso was reunited with its legs at The Inside Scoop at 301 N. Third St. (Route 309) in Coopersburg. High winds knocked off the top half back in February.
Owners Penny and Tony Caciolo were happy to finally bring Chip back to normal, with Penny noting how awkward it was to only see his pants there.
“We’re excited because the community really rallied around him when he fell,” Tony said, noting how some people even wanted a GoFundMe campaign for repairing him.
Mark Cline of Virginia, who constructed Chip, returned to help put the statue back together. By around 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Cline said there were a few remaining touches, but that otherwise Chip was good to go.
The statue was installed in 2018 using a mold of a muffler man, a roadside statue meant to attract drivers to businesses.
“It doesn’t take long for people to become attached to an iconic mascot … it’s like the Statue of Liberty,” Cline said. “It’s an American icon. People love statues. They identify with these things. They’re so huge. I think something about the size, the giants, something people are attracted to these just because … if it was life-sized and it looked exactly the same, he wouldn’t make as much of an impression.”
Cline said he has dealt with damage to the roadside giants before — he once gave one a new head after it was damaged by a tornado in Missouri.
“To me, it’s my job I do every day,” Cline said of restoring Chip. “There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction. But there’s other giants waiting for me, and I almost feel like a doctor, like a triage doctor sometimes. I’m very proud of my work, but once it’s done, I sew it up and move on. There’s always something in the wings for me.”
Inside Scoop manager Natasha Obleschuk said the shop will celebrate Chip’s full return both with a new chocolate-cherry flavor to debut this weekend. A welcome-back party will follow in May.