(A SPECIAL EDITION OF MY BLOG FOR YOUR THANKSGIVING DAY READING)
Last Saturday, Albuquerque radio station KKOB staged a promotion in which hundreds of rubber duck “turkeys” offering various prizes were dropped from the station’s hot air balloon over a crowd at Balloon Fiesta Park.
It was reminiscent of the 1978 episode of the television series “WKRP in Cincinnati” in which live turkeys were dropped from a helicopter over a local shopping mall as part of a Thanksgiving promotion. The incident was reported by the station’s hapless reporter Les Nessman who had said “as God as my witness, I honestly thought turkeys could fly.”
A the turkeys plummet to earth, Nessman goes into his over the top reporting mode:
“Oh, the humanity! People are running about. The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! … Children are searching for their mothers and oh, not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this.”
Hopefully, none of the rubber ducks or people on the ground were injured during the Albuquerque promotion last weekend. However, I discovered an article in the Omaha World Herald this morning in which a real turkey drop was staged in 1946 in the town of Alma, Nebraska. Alma is a small farming community on the Nebraska-Kansas state line, population about 1,500. (The nearest town is named Prairie Dog.)
According to the Omaha World Herald, the Alma promotion was organized by the Alma Chamber of Commerce. Local pilot Jim Waldo was tabbed to release 20 turkeys over the downtown area of the city. Because his plane was small, he could only carry 10 of the birds at a time, so he had to make two passes to release all 20 on that fateful fall Saturday morning.
As it turns out, the birds could actually fly — maybe flutter is a better word. A story in the local newspaper, the Harlan County Journal, said one woman was especially lucky in catching one of the turkeys.
“Two or three of the birds set their sails at a high altitude and really gave the boys and gals a run for their money,” the Journal reported. “The honors for being the luckiest of the day must be awarded to Miss Ruth Swindell. She was in her Main Street apartment, confined with the mumps. As she watched the scene of flying turkeys and lunging chasers, a big turkey landed on top of the porch next to her window.”
“Before Mr. Turkey could gain his bearings,’’ the Journal reported “She opened the window and pulled him into her apartment, and while still holding the prize, called for assistance over the telephone.”
And in another similar promotion in 1930 in in the Florence neighborhood of Omaha, turkeys were released from rooftops of local businesses as a Christmas promotion.
To close out the turkey story with a New Mexico angle, an article in today’s Albuquerque Journal says that researchers at New Mexico Tech in Socorro have created a flying drone using a turkey that had been preserved by taxidermy and infused with a flying drone platform. According to professor Mostafa Hassanalain, the taxidermed turkey and ducks are being created to help understand wildlife and possibly learn more about aerodynamics by studying nature.
So however you got your turkey today, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
aero-cordero.com 