I’m from Leominster MA. I’ve lived here almost all of my life – I was born one town away, but my permanent address for 94% of my life (I did the math, poorly, but you’ll have to trust me) has been here. And we are proud of two things around here; Johnny Appleseed and plastics. If we could combine the two, I think the town would implode. The plastic pink flamingo was invented here. Enough other people have written about Don Featherstone and his fabulous gift to the world, so you can check out the Wikipedia entries. I just want to share this photo of the one in my mom’s yard. Earlier today there was an Easter egg under it, which would have made for a better photo, but the kids grabbed it pretty quickly.
I’ve seen real flamingos, and they seem like they’d be kind of a pain to keep in the yard, what with their need to constantly feed on shrimp and stuff. Sure, my back yard is a bit swampy every time it rains, but I’m pretty sure I’ve only got mosquitoes and ticks out there. No shrimp. So the flamingos would just be really ticked off at me. I think it would be much easier to own this kind. I might have to help them stand after a windstorm, but other than that, they’d be pretty self-sufficient. I like that in a lawn decoration.
