If you are willing to leave the interstate, pay no attention to the clock, and open your eyes, you will be rewarded with a journey that is rich in local lore, regional food, unusual souvenirs, great photographic opportunities and entertaining stories to tell.
-- Pennsylvania Travelers Guide: The Lincoln Highway
Roadside America lives. But to find it, you have to pull over and get out of the car. Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum is a testament to this truth resting just beneath the big-boxification of the national landscape.
Driving west from Gettys-burg, Pa., on the Lincoln High-way (U.S. 30), a cross-country route first established in 1913 and often reconfigured, remnants of shuttered businesses and tourist traps mingle with fruit stands, parks, churches and at least one adult entertainment venue.
A little way past the famed Civil War battlefield, a sign for the Land of Little Horses is a promising cue that this stretch of road is not merely a gamut of ghostly reminders of oddities and wonders suffocated by contemporary life.
Twelve miles down the road, in Orrtanna, Pa., Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum sits near a junction where the old and new Lincoln highways overlap.
While Gettysburg is the main attraction in this part of the world, tourists with a nose for whimsy can look beyond the battlefield and its monumental symbolism to discover Mr. Ed, who represents a more frivolous, but no less intriguing aspect of the American character.
The museum, open since 1983, is a quirky hybrid where you can load up on fresh roasted peanuts, candy necklaces and elephant trinkets, as well as tour Ed Gotwalt's collection of more than 6,000 elephant knickknacks.
Mainstream logic holds that a place like Mr. Ed's can't survive in a monocultural world, but Gotwalt has sidestepped that quandary by refusing to play by mainstream rules.
"It's funny what peanuts and elephants have done for us," Mr. Ed says, with a touch of fatalism suggesting a greater power at work.
He has created a hotspot of offbeat energy, where his own tastes, talents and entrepreneurial skills converge. Visitors are rewarded with an eclectic melange of Americana, including autographed celebrity head shots (TV's All in the Family cast included), newspaper chronicles of Mr. Ed's public appearances, elephants and more elephants and mountains of candy and peanuts, interspersed with signs such as: "Shoplifters will be trampled."
It all fits together in an oddly sensible way that speaks to some eccentric master plan. Mr. Ed, a one-time Giant Foods manager, says his entire life has been a succession of fortuitous events and encounters. "That's what my life has been," he says -- "serendipity."
Sound bites and candy
Lucky visitors at this shrine to lighthearted pleasures may find Mr. Ed on the premises. He's a stout man with a round, pink face, blazing blue eyes and snowy beard, and a kindred spirit to the greatest showman on earth, P.T. Barnum.
Mr. Ed is hardly shy about the thrill he takes in finessing a customer when pitching peanuts and old-fashioned candy at craft shows and fairs. He speaks sagely of the importance of engaging all the senses when pulling in a crowd.
A frequent performer at the nearby Totem Pole Playhouse and a perennial Santa Claus, he has a penchant for publicity stunts and once responded to bankruptcy by alerting the local newspaper, which paraded the news with a big, front-page headline.
It seems Mr. Ed, the man, is indistinguishable from Mr. Ed, the myth. He's a real person and a character, a regular guy and a minor celebrity.
A caveat for those who encounter Mr. Ed: He tends to veer on autopilot, at times speaking in the same sound bites used with other bemused visitors and reporters.
Since that dark day in 1983 when his general store (down the road from his present location) went under, Mr. Ed has done well for himself by selling peanuts and the nostalgia that comes with rolls of dot candy, Black Jack Taffy and Boston Baked Beans. (Note the gold elephant pendant around his neck and the frequent references to world travels).
Yet Mr. Ed, even as he seeks publicity for his efforts, continues to take pleasure in regaling children and Lions Club members alike with the glories of his long association with so many Dumbos and Babars.
And there are so many. A life-size elephant, Miss Ellie, stands outside the museum. When not suffering from laryngitis, which she is on this day, Miss Ellie is programmed to make small talk with tourists. Mr. Ed found the friendly fiberglass pachyderm at an antiques shop in Ohio in 1984 and carted her by trailer to her current home.
Inside, the elephants are on parade by the thousands. In a dimly lighted hallway and an addition built to accommodate Mr. Ed's collection, there are elephant cookie jars, Christmas ornaments, mugs, lamps, posters, flowerpots, figurines, pipe holders, jewelry. There is an elephant hair dryer, potty and a bust of three elephants bursting out of a person's head. There is Horton hatching from an egg and Ganesh, the elephant god. There is a Murano glass elephant and a garish elephant lamp that Mr. Ed bartered for in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A walking stick topped with an elephant head is said to have belonged to a World War I German general.
One case holds numerous Republican-theme mementos, including one touting Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. (Mr. Ed says he votes as an independent.)
Mr. Ed has department store owner John Wanamaker's collection of elephants, and on a recent trip to Orlando, Fla., he scored a set of cutlery with elephant designs once owned by Lana Turner.
He says he would love some day to transport Atlantic City's famous elephant, Lucy (said to be the world's largest wooden elephant), by way of six helicopters, but concedes that coup is unlikely.
A public service
Still, visitors to Mr. Ed's are impressed, judging by the guest book. "Quite a collection, a few more than we have," folks from Texas wrote. Others are more succinct:
"Wow!"
"Unbelievable!"
"Cool!"
Anyone searching for a particular elephant's provenance will have to consult Mr. Ed. Hardly anything is labeled, even though he has a story to tell for virtually every acquisition. Mr. Ed once started to label his elephants, but soon gave up when he realized how many came from friends and family now dead. "I got so upset," he says, "I couldn't go on."
One snappy red elephant on display had graced his grandmother's home in York, Pa. When the aunt who inherited it contributed the figurine to the museum, "I bawled like a baby," Mr. Ed says.
Ask him about the inspiration behind his colorful existence, and at first the usual suspects come to mind, including Barnum and N. M. Cohen, the founder of Giant Foods, who Mr. Ed says always put the customer first. Then, like the true showman he is, he turns the question around and credits the thousands of wide-eyed visitors who have entered -- for no admission -- his elephant museum over the years.
If folks come and don't spend a penny on souvenirs or candy, that's perfectly fine with Mr. Ed. So many of the elephants he has accumulated have been gifts. "It doesn't seem right to charge for something given to me," he says, ever the shrewd and lovable roadside attraction.
And lest you think Mr. Ed is one of a dying breed, consider his reassuring thought: "I think that I and people like me will always be."
When you go
Getting there: From Baltimore, take I-83 to I-795. Then take Route 140 to Route 97. Follow Route 97 to the center of Gettysburg. Drive around the circle to the exit for Route 30 west. Stay on Route 30 for 12 miles, until you see a sign for Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum.
Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum, 6019 Chambersburg Road, Orrtanna, PA 17353
717-352-3792
www.mistereds.com
* Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission is free.
Information: The Gettys-burg area offers plenty of options for sightseeing, dining and lodging. For more information contact:
* Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau: 717- 334-6274; www.gettysburg.com
* Adams County section of the Pennsylvania Visitors Network: www.pavisnet.com
* Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor, P.O. Box 582, Ligonier, PA 15658: 724-238-9030; www.lhhc.org
* Brian A. Butko's book, Pennsylvania Traveler's Guide: The Lincoln Highway, is published by Stackpole Books and is available at major booksellers.