Macy's Day Mahem--a rerun
This is a blog which I originally posted on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009. With the Macy's Day parade coming up today, my Minnesota son is already taking bets on which of the giant balloons will break loose and wreak havoc on the street. This blog also reveals how much more popular our Statesman blogs were in 2009. We had a legion of readers who seem to have fallen away these days.
The Macy's Parade just isn't what it used to be, ever since New York resident Kathleen Caronna was almost killed in 1997, when a mammoth Cat in the Hat balloon went out of control and knocked a lamppost onto her head.
The parade was a tradition in our household in the days before we actually had choices. It was the only game in town, so my kids sat in rapt attention, waiting for a balloon to break out from its leash and start ripping down the streets of New York.
There was a gargantuan Goodyear Tire Man -- or was it the Stay Puft Marshmallow guy? Am I confusing the Thanksgiving parade with the first Ghostbusters movie?? I think that's called "mixing your metaphors..."
Anyway, it was a much more exciting time. In the safer society of 2009, 3 million people line the streets to watch a pretty lame show with compact balloons on short tethers. I'm still watching for the Pink Panther, but I believe he's been retired.
My daughter, curious about that long ago accident, looked up the incident on the web. I had remembered the culprit as the Pink Panther balloon, which was himself pretty rowdy, but history set us straight -- It was Dr. Seuss's mischievous feline friend.
However, I was amazed to learn that the Cat's victim was more unlucky than I previously thought. Not only was she in a coma for a month after her freak accident on the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West, but in October, 2006, a plane crashed into the bedroom of her apartment at 72nd Street and York avenue. The flight instructor was killed, but Mrs. Caronna was unjured. She came home to the apartment only minutes after the crash to find her bedroom on fire.
How unlucky (or lucky?) can one person get? Do you think people follow her around to see if something else is going to happen to her?? The report also neglected to tell how much settlement money she got out of this series of unfortunate events.
I called my son Todd up in Minnesota this Thanksgiving morning, and, sure enough, he and his three children were watching the parade.
Sorry, Todd Douglas, I don't believe the Pink Panther - with all his stringy appendages - is going to make an appearance this year. You'll have to make do with those fat little weiner dogs and Snoopy balloons hugging the ground like beetles, hiding from the billowing New York breezes.
From the sunny southern climes of Memphis on the Mississippi, this is your roving reporter, Madeline, wishing she had some pun'kin pie!
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I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. Everything's caving in on me at the same time -- computer, cell phone....Now all I need is for my refrigerator to stop running!!