`cartoons/queue/20260926-statue-selfie-line.meta.json`

64 lines
{
  "blurb": "The photo line outgrows the roadside statue, so the town erects a statue of the line — which promptly grows a line of its own.",
  "story_id": "es-roadside-statue-photo-line",
  "tags": [
    "monuments",
    "tourism",
    "small town news",
    "editorial cartoon"
  ],
  "new_story": {
    "id": "es-roadside-statue-photo-line",
    "category": "entertainment",
    "categoryLabel": "Entertainment",
    "location": "Vandalia, IL",
    "byline": "Roadside Attractions Correspondent Marva Teasley",
    "image": "images/es-roadside-statue-photo-line.jpg",
    "intervalSec": 43,
    "offsetSec": 10,
    "stageIndex": 0,
    "article": {
      "dek": "The queue to photograph Vandalia's 22-foot fiberglass pinto bean has grown longer than the attraction is tall, and tourists have started photographing the queue instead.",
      "photoCaption": "Visitors wait along the shoulder of Route 51 to photograph Vandalia's fiberglass pinto bean, with the line stretching past the far end of the gravel lot.",
      "paragraphs": [
        "VANDALIA, IL— The photo line at the Enormous Pinto Bean, a 22-foot fiberglass roadside attraction installed off Route 51 in 2019, now routinely runs 40 minutes on weekends, according to figures kept by the volunteers who staff the gravel lot.",
        "Lot attendant Rosalind Kerbey said she began counting after Labor Day, when the queue reached the mailbox of the farm property next door. 'Forty-one minutes, that was the record,' Kerbey said. 'People were pretty good-natured about it.'",
        "What organizers did not expect was that the line itself would become a subject. Kerbey said she now sees roughly a dozen visitors a day who never join the queue at all, photograph it from the shoulder, and drive off.",
        "'They take a picture of everybody waiting and then they leave,' Kerbey said. 'I asked one fella why and he said the line was the more interesting part.'",
        "The Vandalia tourism committee, which oversees the site on a $3,100 annual budget, voted 4-1 this month to commission a small companion sculpture depicting four people standing in line, to be installed near the entrance.",
        "Committee member Dale Frenette cast the lone dissenting vote. 'I don't object to the bean,' Frenette said. 'I object to commemorating the inconvenience of visiting the bean.'",
        "The companion piece was unveiled Saturday. By midafternoon, according to Kerbey's count, eleven people were queued up to photograph it.",
        "The committee has scheduled a special session to consider what it is calling, in the meeting notice, 'the second line question.'"
      ]
    },
    "stages": [
      {
        "headline": "Roadside Bean Statue Draws 40-Minute Photo Line",
        "detail": "Weekend waits at Vandalia's 22-foot fiberglass pinto bean now run past 40 minutes, said lot attendant Rosalind Kerbey, with the queue reaching the neighboring farm's mailbox."
      },
      {
        "headline": "Tourists Begin Photographing The Line Instead Of The Bean",
        "detail": "About a dozen visitors a day now shoot the queue from the shoulder and drive off without joining it. 'The line was the more interesting part,' one told Kerbey."
      },
      {
        "headline": "Tourism Committee Votes To Commission A Statue Of The Line",
        "detail": "The committee approved a companion sculpture of four people waiting, 4-1. Dissenting member Dale Frenette objected to 'commemorating the inconvenience of visiting the bean.'"
      },
      {
        "headline": "Statue Of The Line Draws Its Own Line Within A Day",
        "detail": "Eleven people queued to photograph the new sculpture by midafternoon Saturday, prompting a special session on what the notice calls 'the second line question.'"
      },
      {
        "headline": "Vandalia Now Maintains Four Statues Of Lines And Four Lines",
        "detail": "Each new sculpture commemorates the people who waited for the one before it, and the committee has stopped numbering them in the minutes.",
        "conclusion": "Nobody has photographed the original bean since August, though volunteers confirm it is still there."
      }
    ],
    "tags": [
      "monuments",
      "tourism",
      "small town news"
    ]
  }
}