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.