Larry was the son of Gleb and Hattie, and Gleb was the son of Clarence and Mildred, and the father and mother of Clarence we know not their names. The most important thing is that Larry’s father and mother were very unusual giants. Gleb was quiet and polite, he was meek and helpful. He was happy and thankful. He was very, very fat. Except for the fat part, these were very unusual characteristics for giants.


Larry’s mother was Hattie. She was from Canada, and like most giants from Canada, she was a passive giant who could not understand living in a country without socialized medicine. She came across the border to Lynden in order to marry Gleb. She was pretty for a giant, was pleasingly plump, or in other words, very fat like Gleb, and had a different way of saying some things. She put the word ‘Ah’ after almost every sentence and spoke of that part of the body that is on the back side of your lap as ‘bum’. A stocking cap she called a toque, a sofa is called chesterfield, a bathrobe is a house coat, a line is a queue, and a baby’s pacifier would be a soother. So Hattie might say to Gleb, “Get up off from that chesterfield and take of your house coat, put on your toque and go stand in a queue at the store and buy the baby a soother, and if you don’t do it soon I will kick you in the bum, ah.”


Larry’s Dad Gleb was maybe the gentlest giant that ever lived, and for sure, he was the gentlest giant that ever lived in the Pacific Northwest. Gleb wouldn’t hurt a fly and since giants are not known for taking many baths, there were lots of flies around them, especially in the summer. Gleb even tried not to step on any flowers which was nearly impossible for a man that size. Nevertheless, Gleb was a very kind giant.

Larry was not just very fat, and not just very gentle, and not just very passive, and not just very nice, but humongously very fat and excessively very gentle and intensely very passive and extremely very nice. Unfortunately, Larry was also very, very lazy. He was truly a couch potato, or as his mom would say, a chesterfield potato. The only thing he would ever do was eat and lay on the couch which finally broke because Larry became so fat. He ate and he ate and he ate until he got so big there was no more room for the whole family. He was so fat that he could not get through the door so they had to remove the wall to get Larry out of the house and into a large building used for storing hay. He was eventually named ‘Lazy Larry the Lardy Lump of Lynden.’

Lazy Larry continued to do nothing but eat. Pretty soon he was too big for the hay storage shed and a special pole building bad to be built to cover Lazy Larry. Many people told Gleb to stop feeding Larry, but Gleb was just too nice even though he knew Larry was too fat, he still could not bring himself to cause his son any discomfort. Gleb would try to keep food from Larry, but Larry would moan and groan and cry and sob and soon Gleb would bring him some food.

Lazy Larry had grown so big and fat that it was impossible for anyone to build a building big enough to over him, so Lazy Larry just laid out in the middle of a big field and continues to eat. But soon summer was going to end. The winds and rains came but Larry was too Lazy and too fat to move. Before long it was winter and the snow began to fall. Lazy Larry was covered with snow and all of the kids from Lynden came out with their sleds and would slide down the side of Lazy Larry. He was like a big white mountain in the middle of Lynden. The snow continued to fall for over a week before it warmed up a little and the snow turned to rain.


When the snow had all washed away, everyone came out to see if Larry was still alive. But a week covered with snow was too much, and Lazy Larry had frozen to death. The people of Lynden were saddened by the death of Lazy Larry. They all came by to see Gleb and Hattie to tell them how sorry they all were.

The town’s people realized what a big task they had before them when they understood the size of the hole that needed to be dug in order to bury Lazy Larry. All of the men started digging a grave for Larry. They went out southwest of Lynden and began to dig. They dug for three weeks, day and night to get the grave ready for Lazy Larry. Then on the last night of digging, it began to rain. It rained for two whole days and when it stopped raining the hole that had been dug was now Wiser Lake.

What was the town to do? What was to be done with Lazy Larry? The only thing to do was to build an eight foot high cyclone fence around the field that Lazy Larry was in and have everyone stay upwind from the field as much as possible.

The cyclone fence took two years to build. By that time, all that was left of Lazy Larry was a huge skeleton. The next problem arrived, what was to be done with all of these giant bones?

At the next town meeting, the mayor presented the problem. No one had any reasonable solutions, so finally the mayor went over to the window where Gleb and Hattie were bent down peering through the windows and asked what they wished be done with the bones. Gleb and Hattie chatted a moment and then Gleb said, “Honorable Mayor, distinguished city council, faithful citizens of Lynden and guests; it is the desire of both my wife Hattie and myself, that the bones of our youngest child Larry be donated to the city of Lynden, to be used in the service of the citizenship and for a lasting memorial to our loving but extremely lazy son Larry.

All of the people cheered and clapped their hands for Gleb and Hattie. This made Gleb and Hattie very happy and they hugged each other before venturing on their way home. After the giants were out of sight, the town’s people looked at one another and said, “what ever are we going to do with the bones of Lazy Larry?” So, the city council elected a committee to find out what should be done with the remains of what everyone called Lazy Larry the Lardy Lump of Lynden.

A year passed before all of the bones of Lazy Larry were used. His leg bones were used as the main braces that hold up the bridge that was built over the Nooksack River. His arm bones were used as part of the largest windmill every built in the new world. And his rib cage? His rib cage stayed right where it was. It was too big to move anywhere else. They used to rib cage for the main girders to build a covered grandstand. They left the fence in place and designated the fenced area and the new grandstand to be the Northwest Washington Fair Grounds of Lynden. So next time you visit the fair, look at the fence that goes all the way around the fairgrounds. Go sit in the grandstand to watch the draft horse show and look up at the ceiling of the grandstand. And there you will see the painted ribs of Lazy Larry the Lardy Lump of Lynden.