Archive: Around Town

When Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on February 2, evidently eight flamingos didn't get the message.  Saturday they perched on roof of the Lansing home of Jamie and Melissa Ferris, and they have been there all week, evidently feasting on a twelve-pack of beer.  "I had nothing to do with it, of course," says local attorney Guy Krogh.  "The birds actually flocked and migrated to that rooftop."

The truth is that the birds are the result of a long planned, nefarious act of revenge for a seemingly innocent prank Melissa pulled off over a year ago when she attached a pink Disney princess antenna decoration on Krogh's truck.  He didn't notice it for a week while he drove to hunting and fishing trips and to poker games.  Finally a buddy asked him what the little pink princess was doing on his truck.  He quickly figured out who had perpetrated the perplexingly pink pickup princess.


"I thought about revenge, and it had to be something pink," Krogh says.  "I decided on pink flamingos.  I originally thought about putting them in their yard, but they would be too easy to remove and they wouldn't be a big enough advertisement for all the neighbors that live behind them."

It took over a year to get his revenge, because he needed a time when the Ferris family was out of town to maximize the amount of time the flamingos would be on view.  And he needed a time when his family wouldn't be around, because the families are close and he was afraid someone would spill the beans.

Last Saturday Krogh saw his chance and he took it.  He had been hiding flamingo lawn ornaments in his garage, and when his family left with the Ferris family for a vacation on Friday he went to work.  Krogh was to leave on Sunday for a business trip before joining the others.

He wanted to get in and out quickly without being noticed, so he hinged two pieces of plywood and attached the birds to it so he could lug the whole flock onto the roof in one piece.  He disguised himself as a repairman in case anyone saw him climbing onto the Ferris roof.  Then, after snapping a few pictures, he skulked away.

The famous pink flamingo lawn ornament was invented by Union Products, Inc. designer Don Featherstone in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1957.  The company manufactured the birds for almost 50 years.  They originally sold for $2.76 for a pair, but today a pair typically sells for around fifteen or twenty dollars.  In 2007 Union Products shut down their bird factory and sold the rights and the original moulds to HMC International LLC, in Westmoreland, New York near Utica.

Over the years the pink flamingo lawn ornament has come to symbolize kitch, but many people have a fondness for the classic lawn ornament.  They have gathered a cult following of practical jokers who populate friends' lawns with hundreds of birds, or steal them from a neighbor, mailing photographs of the flamingo from different tourist locations around the globe.


So Krogh follows in a long-standing American tradition that one could say is for the birds.  "I wanted to put 40 of them up there," he says.  "But those things are hard to find, and they're really expensive.  I wanted to get the really cheesy, big ones, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  So I took what I could find."

His revenge wouldn't be complete until the Ferris Family was made aware that they had birds on their roof.  "I texted Melissa, 'Your house is much more beautiful now,' " he reports.  "I didn't get a response, so I threw another teaser out, and my wife finally texted back, 'What did you do?'  I started sending pictures and closeups."

Reportedly Melissa's response was, 'Bring it on, bad boy!'

It is all in good fun.  After all, Krogh thought rethought his original plan to remove the ladders from the garage to make it harder to get the birds down.  And he did leave a twelve-pack of beer up there for Jamie when he climbs up to rescue the flock.  But urban legend is fraught with tales of escalating revenge, neighbors perpetrating bigger and bigger practical jokes in an endless quest to outdo each other.  This certainly has the makings of such a feud.

As it is, those eight birds are freezing on the roof, only half way through Punxsutawney Phil's prediction for what has been a particularly cold winter.  But the view is fabulous.

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