A friend called the other day just to see what I was up to. I anchored the phone on my shoulder as I continued to perform the chore I was doing and answer her question at the same time.
"I'm washing my pink flamingo," I replied to her inquiry.
Well, she asked, didn't it wash itself?
There was silence. Of course there would be. And then, she said, quite awkwardly, "Uhhhhh, I didn't know you had a flamingo."
My flamingo, is, of course, not the real thing. But I was scrubbing the winter's grime from the somewhat faded pink body and when she asked what I was doing, I answered without thinking.
It is a whimsical yard ornament I ordered from a catalog a couple of years ago. I love it. I have since learned it has a name: the "Bouncin' Head" lawn flamingo.
It has a body and head of wood, and the two are joined by a long narrow sheet of metal that allows the head to bob in a breeze. Its promotional literature says, "Given a gentle tap, he'll pretty much agree to anything."
Its legs are two narrow metal rods inserted into the bottom of the wooden belly.
It is much maligned, this creature, though fans of the PPF (pink plastic flamingo) refer to it as "splendor on the grass."
The pink flamingo has a position of respect in Florida, where it decorates everything from tableware to sheets, beach towels and flip-flops.
Here, however, the plastic flamingo has always been considered tacky. Why is that?
If you see one in someone's yard, you kind of titter and assume someone is playing a joke. On the other hand, you can almost tell when someone has placed a flamingo or two in a garden with a feeling of love and respect.
They are oblivious to ridicule, as they should be. They refuse to concede the pink flamingo is a laughing matter.
I have to admit I never wanted one of the plastic ones, even though they have been gracing (or disturbing) America's lawns for more than 40 years in either the feeding or standing pose.
And when I saw the real bird in a zoo setting in New Jersey, I thought it was plastic. The real thing looks every inch like the sculpted plastic version.
They are rather unusual looking, that's for sure, but I don't know how they became the butt of jokes. Isn't a plastic deer, sheep or duck just as silly?
I had a new respect for the birds after seeing them live and taking off in a flock at a California preserve. Did you ever see one fly? Such grace and beauty.
You can get a flamingo wind wheel, jumbo wire picks, bird feeder, trellis, flag, all-weather statue, welcome hanger or wind chimes if you log on to FlamingoMania.com.
You can also get a "Flamingo Road" sign. There was once a tacky TV series by that name. You see? Guilt by association. Not the bird's fault.
Don Featherstone is the father of the pink plastic flamingo concept. He invented it when he first went to work for Union Products in Leominster, Mass., in 1957, right out of art school. He sculpted it out of clay, and that was used to make a plaster cast, and the cast was used for aluminum dies to mold the plastic.
He stayed at Union, buying the firm from the former owners in 1996. He retired last year.
They manufacture between 600 and 800 products, and Featherstone sculpted all of the originals, including ducks, penguins and gnome lawn ornaments.
"In the summer," Featherstone said in a 1997 interview, "I keep 57 flamingos in my own yard, but in the winter I have two white ones called Snomingos, and 17 penguins."
In early America, there was no lawn ornamentation. When Europeans started bringing over bronze statuary, few people could afford them. Before plastics, only rich people could afford to have poor taste, says Featherstone, who obviously has a sense of humor.
His own neighbors used to hate his flamingos and complained all the time. But when they moved to Florida, they asked him to send them some.
This is his theory: He did something people enjoyed, something amusing, when he created the pink plastic flamingo, and that's more satisfying than designing something destructive, like the atom bomb.
People who put out flamingos, he says, are friendlier than most people.
Well, mine isn't the PPF, but close. It makes me a nicer person.
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