Famous Snowman Stops for Selfie With Big Duck in Flanders

SOUTHAMPTON, NY - It was a match made in social media heaven.

On Sunday, a Long Island snowman who’s become an international celebrity took his show on the road — making a stop at the Big Duck in Flanders.

“Snowman was seen at the historic site of the Big Duck on the East End of Long Island yesterday,” the Save the Snowman Facebook page read. “Snowman was in a jovial mood, tossing snowballs lightly at the huge duck.”

Since he first introduced his snowman last winter, Mike Fregoe, 51, of Massapequa Park, told Patch his family’s snowman started off as any other they’ve built to greet their Smith Street neighbors.

Each year, he said, his wife Lisa and daughters Rebecca, 16 and Julia, 11, build snowmen, dressing them up and making people laugh.

Last year, Fregoe, who’s in marketing, decided to create the Facebook page — and his idea snowballed, as scores of fans returned to the page daily to see how long Snowman would survive.

“I got obsessed with it,” he said. “It really took off.”

Instead of letting the snowman fade as the weather improved, Fregoe decided to keep him alive.

With the help of a Facebook page, Save Our Snowman, the Fregoes took on the task of helping the snowman survive warmer temperatures.

“I thought, let’s see if we can find out how long we can make him last. And now it’s April and he’s still here!” he wrote last year.

This year, Fregoe said he set out to recreate the magic. “I felt obligated; we really wanted to do it again this year.”

The day of this year’s blizzard, Fregoe said it was too cold to actually build the snowman, so they waited an extra day, until January 26.

What began as a fun tradition for his family has turned into a frozen phenomenon, Fregoe said.

“We do encourage people to bring snow,” he said. Generous gifters of the white stuff have brought snow in coolers from various locations out east and up north, he said. Fregoe has also found some locations, such as Bethpage State Park, where he finds big mounds of clean snow, which he uses to rebuild the snowman.

A snow contractor has also volunteered his services, offering to bring a dump truck of snow to keep the snowman healthy.

As for the snowman’s visit to Flanders, Fregoe said his family loves traveling to the East End. “It’s beautiful out there. my dad had a house on Shelter Island and we love all the fun places, and the historic sites, such as the Montauk Lighthouse and the Big Duck.”

Asked how the snowman actually made the trip, Fregoe laughs, and refuses to divulge the secret.

But he did say the snowman has gotten around — he’s taken selfies at the Statue of Liberty, the Late Show, and at Jones Beach. All it takes is a belief in the power of magic, he said.

On a serious note, Fregoe said the snowman touches a chord in everyone who celebrates keeping him alive long into spring.

“It’s the magic of the snowman, the child in all of us,” he said.

So many stories in the new are serious and sad, requiring attention, he said. But others inspire: a handicapped person running a race, people reaching out to support a charity. “The snowman is one of those kinds of stories. The only thing it’s here for is to make people happy,” Fregoe said. “It makes people happy to remember their childhood, and that spirit of fun. Some people, you can’t take that away from them. That’s why people are pulling up to my house all day long and taking pictures with their kids.”

Right now, the snowman is covered with plastic; on Wednesday, he’ll “clean” the snow and add a fresh layer, since colder temperatures are expected. Any snow, he said, is “helpful.”

Last year, the snowman made it till Easter. “We still had him. We were eating Easter dinner and out the window, there was a line of cars.”

The snowman, Fregoe said, has had life-altering impacts.

Kacie Horner, a fan of the snowman’s from England, wrote on the Save the Snowman page recently, “Our son is 28 months old he is currently being investigated for autism. He has never seen snow apart from pictures and on the TV. Every morning he wakes up he wants the iPad to check on the ’Moe Man’. Our son has very limited speech and communication, he no longer says ‘Mummy’, ‘Daddy’, or the simplest of words. So for him to say ‘snowman’ in his own way is such a gift. We live in North Somerset, England and I just wanted to say a big ‘thank you’ for giving our little boy joy with your photos and giving us the gift of a new word. Long live the snowman.”

Those words, Fregoe said, mean everything.

“You really see, then, what this is all about,” he said.

Fregoe, who sells “Save the Snowman” T-shirts, said he planned to send one to the little boy in England, but a fan of the page stepped up to pay for the shirt, and shipping. “People are just banding together for a good cause,” he said.

The snowman, he said, has even been photographed at a bridge near his house; he spent hours creating a painstaking scene of coyote, a pelican and wildlife. The photo, he said, sparked imagination, creativity, and the belief that magic still exists today. “That’s what makes it so much fun,” he said.

Find out how to donate snow and see photos of the famous snowman on the Save Our Snowman Facebook page here.