Daring Derik Dragon Returns?

You've probably already read about the statue that's been proposed for the school. Or maybe Railroad Park. Or the fairgrounds. Or someplace else.

Or Loonfoot Falls may not get its dragon at all. The City Council will talk about it, again, next week.

I hope it's built.

Loonfoot Falls is a bit remarkable for being a Minnesota town without its own oversize sculpture of a crow, otter, prairie chicken, walleye, lumberjack, bear, pike, or muskie. There's even one showing a grasshopper the size of a terrier, shishkabobbed on somebody's pitchfork. And yes: I know. Muskies are a kind of pike.

That punctured grasshopper, I understand, dates back to a gag made up in the fifties: and doesn't have much to do with the nineteenth century grasshopper plague. Which was no joke at all.

I've gotten off track. Back to that dragon statue.

Folks in town have been talking about building another Loonfoot Dragon, ever since Daring Derik Dragon burned down, back in 1986. Derik was made of fiberglass, steel, and cardboard. Quite a lot of cardboard, apparently.

It's been a sore point with some folks here that Frazee rebuilt their turkey statue: but we're still dragonless.

The statue Albert Graff showed the council this week is small enough to fit on a trailer: a design requirement since be on the road from time to time as a high school mascot, or appear in parades.



Mr. Graff assured the council that his Derik wouldn't have a shred of cardboard in him.