Uncle Sam: Retired prison guard has a tall feat

By Wayne Laepple
The Daily Item

July 03, 2009 08:08 am

— LEWISBURG — Though he’s usually the tallest person in Lewisburg’s annual Fourth of July parade, “Uncle Sam” was of normal height this year.
Art Bunce, who portrays Uncle Sam while striding down the street on stilts, was recovering from surgery this year and couldn’t walk on stilts. But he was there nonetheless, walking and handing out thousands of pieces of candy to children along the route.
Bunce, a retired federal prison guard, has become such a fixture in Lewisburg’s parade since he first donned his signature red, white and blue outfit in 1998 that he’s one of the first people the parade committee contacts each year.
“I look forward to doing the Lewisburg parade every year,” he said.
“It’s not a Fourth of July parade without Uncle Sam,” according to Graham Showalter, parade chairman.
Bunce receives many requests to portray Uncle Sam in parades, but Lewisburg’s is one he doesn’t want to miss.
He started out portraying a much different character, however. His first foray into parading on stilts was as the monster Frankenstein in 1996. He also wore a clown costume in several parades that year. He’s marched in parades in Danville, Northumberland, Sunbury and Watsontown in the monster and clown outfits.
His wife, Donna, custom sews his costumes.
“When he was first asked to be Uncle Sam in April 1998, I made his costume in two days,” she said.
Bunce learned to walk on stilts as a young man, when he worked as a drywall hanger.
“I strapped them on, and once I got up, I didn’t have any trouble,” he recalled. “It’s just like walking normally.”
The only time he has difficulty, he said, is when he can’t see his feet. He recalled falling only once.
“When I do parades, sometimes I’ll walk up to some old people sitting on a porch and give them some candy,” he said. “I did that one night in Watsontown, and I forgot about the curb when I walked back to the parade, so down I went. I got right back up, though.”
Bunce enjoys his role.
“I do it for the kids,” he said. “I really enjoy doing things for little kids.”
In the course of the Lewisburg parade, Bunce and his wife, who sometimes accompanies him dressed as the Statue of Liberty, distribute 4,000 pieces of candy.
“We donate it all,” he said. “I have three people who replenish my candy supply along the route.”
He used to carry the candy in a basket, but his wife got him an old-fashioned bank bag and sewed play money around it.
After the parades, Bunce enjoys going to restaurants such as Dunkin Donuts and Wendy’s to greet astonished children and adults. He used to walk to Lewisburg’s Dunkin Donuts after the parade, but now he rides in the back of a pickup so he doesn’t have to take off his stilts after each stop.
“I can’t acknowledge everyone who yells or waves while I’m in the parade,” he explained.

The making of Uncle Sam
The term “Uncle Sam” for the United States evolved from Samuel Wilson, a government meat inspector from Troy, N.Y. During the War of 1812, Wilson, who was known as Uncle Sam, saw barrels of meat stamped U.S. (for United States). Someone asked him what the initials meant, and he jokingly replied, “Uncle Sam.” Wilson was well-known for his fairness, reliability and devotion to his country, qualities passed on to the mythical Uncle Sam.
The term became to symbolize the United States, and in 1861, a drawing in a Washington, D.C., newspaper first showed a character wearing a starred hat and striped shirt. In 1869, the famed political cartoonist Thomas Nast depicted Uncle Sam as a tall man wearing a top hat, striped trousers and chin whiskers, which has become the “standard” image of Uncle Sam.
The cover of Leslie’s Weekly Magazine of July 6, 1916, by James Montgomery Flagg, became the most famous image of Uncle Sam. More than 4 million posters of that image were made during 1917-18.

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