Texas neighborhood mascot found in trash

AMARILLO, Texas, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A Texas woman said Wilbur, a stuffed neighborhood mascot she made in the image of her late husband, was rescued from a garbage bin and returned to her.

Imogene Genetti, 86, of Amarillo, who made the life-sized cotton-stuffed mascot in the image of her late husband, Herman, who died in March 2007, said Wilbur vanished from her porch in early September and was returned to her home Tuesday by a man who said he found it in a garbage bin, the Amarillo Globe-News reported Wednesday.

"A fella comes to the door and he says, 'Is Wilbur yours?' and I said, 'Well, yeah,'" she said. "So he says 'Well, I've got him out here.'"

Genetti said the man told her he found Wilbur in a garbage bin and returned it to her after reading a Globe-News article about the missing mascot.

She said Wilbur's old outfit, denim overalls with a button-up shirt, baseball cap and glasses, was missing when he resurfaced and he was instead dressed in a a green Aeropostale T-shirt and saggy jeans with blue boxer shorts hanging out.

"I kind of think that he lived a pretty wild life for the month," Genetti said. "He just had such a dead life at home, he had to go out on the town."