My thoughts on an industry icon: Don Featherstone

I just started the Heavy Metal blog, and it's already time to depart from my machinery-beat script!

Why? Because an icon has passed away: Don Featherstone, the man who created the plastic pink flamingo. He died on Monday June 22, after succumbing to Lewy body disease, a form of dementia.

OK, maybe Featherstone's flamingo lawn ornament is not an icon in those upscale communities that impose rigid landscaping rules. Or those oh-so-earnest towns that mandate strict historical authenticity.

Well, who wants to live there anyway?

Do you really want to live anyplace that would ban you from sticking a pink flamingo in your yard? How uptight!

Here's what the blow molded, plastic pink flamingo is all about: Don't take yourself too seriously. And that is what Don Featherstone was all about, too.

Don and his wife, Nancy, dressed alike every day. They had fun.

Their cool old Victorian house in Fitchburg, Mass., looks like someplace Stephen King would love. The Featherstones have a collection of historical flamingos in their yard, including a vintage cast-iron bird that dates to 1908.

In the 1950s, when Americans started to travel to Florida, they wanted to bring a part of the Sunshine State back to their new suburban homes in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit. The pink flamingo yard ornament took off!

Then for awhile, the pink flamingo became uncool. They were the butt of jokes. And still are. But that's exactly makes the pink flamingo such an iconic, kitschy American product.

When I started at Plastics News in 1989, the two stories I knew I would absolutely have to cover were the pink flamingo made by Union Products, and the Wiffle Ball. It changed me, meeting people responsible for both of these great pieces of Americana. There's more about business than piling up the money. Business can and should be fun!

(The other plastics story I thought would be great would be a history piece on Jarts, the lawn dart game of my youth. But note: Jarts are now illegal, thanks to all the neighborhood punks who threw them like deadly projectiles at their little brothers. If you happen to look at a Jarts website, men in black uniforms parachute down and arrest you… or force you to use those “safe” plastic-tipped lawn darts).

Returning to flamingos: I am so lucky I got to meet Don and Nancy Featherstone. She will soldier on, but when your beloved husband dies, and you dressed the same all the time, it won't be easy. I'm guessing that Nancy will miss, the most, laughing at Don's off-beat sense of humor.

And so here are all the funny quotes from Don Featherstone that ran in Plastics News stories:

Gee Don, isn't the pink flamingo kind of tacky? “People always had poor taste. They put cherubs all over their yards and hung gargoyles off the buildings.”

Union Products makes yard art, a whimsical statement in a troubled word. “There's 250 people in this factory employed making these ‘whimsical' products.”

Did you ever image the pink flamingo would be such a huge hit? “Of course not. No more than the chicken with a bonnet that I'm sculpting right now is gonna make it.”

“When you're at a trade show and they ask, ‘What does your company make, and you say ‘Pink plastic lawn flamingos,' they know who you are, where you're located, and that's it. If I told them flowerpots, they would never know, but everybody knows Union and knows that we make that flamingo.”

“Where else could you buy tropical elegance for less than 10 bucks?”

Here's a good one, to wrap up this edition of Heavy Metal. In 2007, I covered a summer festival in Leominster, Mass., where Union Products was based before it shut down. It was Don Featherstone Day and Pink Flamingo Day. Don and Nancy led the parade in their 1931 Packard.

When news spread locally that Union Products was closing down, in 2006, there was a run on the stores to buy the flamingos. I'll let the Featherstones take it from there, from the Plastics News story:

“I had people come to my house and say, ‘I just bought this at the local garden shop. Would you sign it for me?'” Featherstone said. “They had to rush to get me before I died so I could sign their flamingos—(even) on my front porch.”

People flocked to the Featherstone house in Fitchburg, Mass. They took photos of him autographing.

Nancy continued the story: “We told them when they came, ‘Are you doing this for you, or is this something you're going to put on eBay'”

Then she continued in a high-pitched voice, quoting the autograph seekers, ‘”Oh no, this is for us. Oh, I'm a big fan and it's for me.' And the next week it would be on eBay, including the picture.”

They both shared a hearty laugh. And that's the way to remember Don Featherstone.