McShocker: Reston Home To Sacred Artifact Of Americana

European cities were built around cathedrals, which in turn were built, in part, to house relics -- the toenail of a saint, or what have you. We're pleased to tell you that Reston, too, is home to an artifact that's worthy of a large physical structure -- say, a seven-level parking garage topped by parallelograms -- to call home.

Our favorite correspondent, The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, just happened to be watching "History Detectives" on PBS when the show's hosts stumbled upon the find of the millennium -- the original Ronald McDonald costume, in the hands of a Reston collector! (It was actually the prototype used to standardize advertising for franchise operators around the country, but who's quibbling?) Not Randy Lieberman, our own Indiana Jones of mid-century franchise memorabilia.

Please to be enjoying this fancy embedded video of this dramatic find (skip ahead to about 37:00 for the McDonalds segment). A transcript is available here if for some reason you prefer reading.



As the Peasant put it, "how this national treasure escaped being swept up by the Smithsonian is unclear, but it is with pride swelling in our hearts and a tear in our eyes that Restonians can state we are indeed the official cultural capital of the civilized world, with the Macaroni Grill as our artistic epicenter. Paris may have the Beaux Arts, but we have the Beaux-zo Arts!"