"I recently posted a photo of “Carrot Man” and realised after reading the comments that not everyone knew about him!

Well, here is the original story I posted 5 years ago….Enjoy!

“I have seen this man before, I mean how do you miss a man carrying a giant carrot?! But i’ve never been able to catch him! Today I did and what a legend he is!

“I have to ask, why do you always carry a giant carrot around?”

Nathan:

“To make people smile… You see, one day I went to an op shop and I bought a giant turnip. I was carrying it home and noticed how much it made people smile. That made me feel really good!

So I decided to try carrying other giant things around. I carried a giant octopus and a giant squid… then I made the giant carrot and carried it around town and I noticed a big difference. The diversity of people smiling and the number of people smiling was much greater. So I just kept carrying the carrot around because it was the most successful thing at making people smile.

Personally I would have loved to keep carrying the squid but it was the carrot that everyone loved…

I’m on a disability pension, you see, and this is my way of giving back. I’m a part of the community, putting smiles on people’s faces.

Like today for instance, I was at home watching a DVD, and I just thought, ‘Nah, I’m going to go out and make hundreds of people smile instead with the carrot.’

Last year there was a big protest at Parliament, right wing people and anti-racism people and I was at home watching it on TV thinking ‘how awful, this could end up in a riot.’

So I picked up my carrot and wandered down. It worked so well, people started smiling when they saw me and the carrot and I think it helped calm them down.

I try to get out as often as possible but you have to be in the mood to do something like this… today I’ve been out here for about an hour and a half and I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of smiles. This is what’s so good about it, if I want to do something good I just grab the carrot and head on out.

Keep on carrying that carrot Nathan!

You make Melbourne a better place.”