Giant Spud Manuevers Tantalizingly Close to Giant Fork

Idaho’s six-ton Big Potato met its match in a “mash of titans” when the potato-carrying truck parked beside the Fork in the Road – that’s the 18-foot wooden fork stuck into the ground on the median that splits Pasadena and Saint John Avenues on July 11.

The 28-foot-long potato brought by the Idaho Potato Commission was celebrated with jugglers, potato-themed songs, and potato games, provided by The Coffee Gallery Backstage, an entertainment event venue in Altadena run by longtime local entertainpreneur Bob Stane.

“We met a fork big enough to eat it with,” Adam Branstetter of the Idaho Potato Commission said. “It’s fun to see the potato, get people to taste it, try to bite it. It’s a great time.”

The potato previously met the fork in the road on its 2012 tour to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Idaho Potato Commission.

“It’s amazing. We drove by and thought it was real. My son has a band at school that’s called ‘Radical Potatoes’ so its especially meaningful to him,” Alex Oginz said, a mom of two sons who happened upon the giant spud.

The tour which started in April has a new mission, “A Big Helping Hand,” where it identifies charities in the markets it visits and offers a helping hand based on the specific needs of the organizations it partners with.

The tour raised funds for the San Gabriel Valley animal rescue group Lifeline for Pets, giving a dollar for every signature on a signature board.

In 2009 friends of Bob Stane, owner of the Coffee Gallery Backstage, erected the fork in the road statue as a comical birthday present. Although illegal at the time, Stane and his friend Ken Marshall worked with the city to keep the oversized fork at the fork in the road. It is now widely appreciated as an act of “guerrilla art.”