Flamingos EVERYWHERE!!

Mamadukes, a.k.a. my mother, will attest that I LOVED flamingos as a child.  Well I guess in full disclosure I should say that I LOVED fandingos, but that is another story all together.  Maybe the facination was because they get to hang out in the water all day or because they have backwards "knees" or because their color is dependent on what they had for lunch.  Who knows, but it was definitely a thing (and kind of still is a thing). 

Little known fact Don Featherstone invented the pink plastic lawn flamingo in 1957 and his pop art icon won him the the Ig Nobel Prize for Art in 1996.  

While wandering around Bawlmer, Murlin (that would be Baltimore, MD for us out of towners) I noticed these flamingos EVERYWHERE.  Very excited, and slightly perplexed, I contacted my good friend Erica who grew up in the area to ask her if the plastic flamings were a thing; she gave me a resounding YES on the gchats!  Unlike the rest of the country, it is far more common to see purple ones as opposed to the traditional pink flamingos.  I am going to go out on a limb here and use my fine skills of reasoning/deduction and chalk it up to the hometown pride/love/OBSESSION of the Ravens. 

They are all over the Hon store on The Avenue

Yes I even found a flamingo hat - dibbs for possible Halloween costume

There is even a two story one outside the Hon Cafe.  

Clearly I will need to start eating here. 

 

When I got home I did a bit more digging and I think I can trace the obsession back to the UBER low budget, cult movie Pink Flamingos.  The film takes place in Phoenix, MD and outside the protagonist's pink trailer there stands a pair of plastic pink flamingos.  From there the plot gets crazy, but it looks like there is a drag queen, some kind of a party and a kangaroo court to look into a homicide.  I am going to track down a copy of a movie and let you know if it is worth your time.  Apparently it did make a the list of the 50 Films to See Before You Die in the UK so I have high hopes will probably have to grin and bear it throughout the whole thing.