Monday, April 23, 2007

The Garbage Goat

GarbageGoat The Spokane Department of Parks and Recreation does a pretty good job of keeping Riverfront Park (and the other Spokane parks) clean. But no area of Riverfront Park is as clean as the 50 yards or so around the Garbage Goat.

Built for the '74 World's Fair, the Garbage Goat is a kid magnet. Finding themselves with an empty mini-donuts bag, parents bring their kids to the goat, hit the button and SNORT the bag is sucked up the goat's mouth and nose. Very young kids react with fright. A little older, and it is a frenzy of "What else will it eat!" Leaves? Yep. Stray drink lids found on the ground? Yep. Ticket stubs? Receipts from mom's purse? Dollar bills? Dirt? Small rocks? Timmy! Don't pull that out of the garbage can!? Yep, yep and yep.

And if you hang out around it for any amount of time, don't be surprised when you see a woman in a business suit slip the goat an apple core or a retiree feed the goat a plastic bag or three. There's something about shop-vac technology and a friendly goat that brings out the kid in everyone.

4 comments:

Puzzled said...

I want a garbage goat for our community.

Betsy O'Donovan said...

Oh, me too! What a cool idea!

Matt said...

I had a paragraph in my original draft about how every community park should have one. But I thought I was straying from the point and cut it. Obviously, Puzzled and O'Donovan can read between the lines.

Anonymous said...

I love Trashy the garbage goat. He is an unforgettable icon of Spokane!! =)