Dark Knight
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By MARK JEWELL, AP Business Writer
The day Mayor Dean Mazzarella turned 40, he got a surprise. "After I woke up and went out for my morning run, I came back and there were 40 pink flamingos in my front lawn," Mazzarella recalled. "Someone had put them there as a joke."
Now that he's 49 "the same age as the pink flamingo," he notes he hopes both he and the iconic lawn ornament that his city claims as its own will still be around next year to celebrate 50.
But the original version of the plastic flamingo may be singing its swan song after inspiring countless pranks and being alternately celebrated as a tribute to one of nature's most graceful creatures and derided as the epitome of American pop culture kitsch.
Union Products Inc. stopped producing flamingos and other lawn ornaments at its Leominster factory in June, and is going out of business Nov. 1 a victim of rising expenses for plastic resin and electricity, as well financing problems.
The small privately held firm has been in talks with a pair of rival lawn ornament makers interested in buying the molds and resuming production of the flamingos, designed in 1957 by local son Don Featherstone.
Other companies' knockoff versions of the Featherstone original remain in production. But the uncertainty surrounding the original has aficionados of kitsch snapping up what they can via the online auction site eBay and elsewhere in case Featherstone versions go out of stock for good.
More at link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061029/ap_on_bi_ge/flamingo_s_swan_song&printer=1
