The Foam Man

This is The Foam Man's idea of advertising. It's on the exterior of the little building that he shares with a car stereo place. It is, of course, a foam man, and he's been there as long as we have been here.

We moved here in 1998, and I'm kind of shocked when I realize how often I have been to this place: The Foam Man, Corvallis, Oregon.




I mean, how often do you really need foam? For us, apparently once every couple of years. Foam for cushions, a dog bed, what else? We shipped a guitar packed in foam to Australia. 

 These words came from Yelp, an online review site:

I love that this place still exists. It's one of those stores that you think would fail in a week... but it's still there year after year. They sell... foam...Michael N. from Seattle

 Yep.

 Any kind of foam you might want. There is a surprising array of foam.

 

I was accompanying John, who was looking for a wedge to elevate his head at night. His doctor had sent him to The Foam Man. Naturally I was dying to go along.

This time we asked him how he got into this business; how did he decide to do this?

He glanced up at us, and said with surprising directness: "You've heard of going postal? Well, I used to be a firefighter for many years, but I hated my supervisor and finally I came to the conclusion that I must kill my boss. Yes! I would murder my boss, and I would go to prison, and the government would take care of my family. So I spent some time in a padded cell, and when I came out I cashed in my retirement and bought this business. Been doing it ever since."

John made a lame joke about "the padded cell being a huge inspiration" and I took a hurried snapshot.

When you ask questions like that, you never really know what you're gonna get.