RIP pink plastic lawn flamingo inventor

[kelroy55]

BOSTON (AP) — The creator of the pink plastic lawn flamingo, the ultimate symbol of American lawn kitsch, has died. Donald Featherstone was 79.

Featherstone's wife, Nancy, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that her husband died Monday at an elder care facility in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, after a long battle with Lewy body dementia.

Featherstone, a trained sculptor with a classical art background, created the flamingo in 1957 for plastics company Union Products, modeling it after a bird he saw in National Geographic. Millions of the birds have been sold.

Featherstone worked for Union for 43 years, inventing hundreds of plastic products in that time and rising to the position of president before his retirement in 1999.

In addition to his wife of 40 years, Featherstone is survived by two children, four grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.

[hoya]

The pink golf pants and Hawaiian shirt really tie the whole picture together.

[rezman]

Throw in an old Airstream or Spartan travel trailer with striped awning in the background, then the scene would be complete.

[hoya]

Actually those things are pretty darn cool.

[trousers]

Cool doesn't do those trailers justice.

[rezman]

I remember hearing about a game of sorts that a neighborhood would play. I don't recall where it was, but it started with a neighbor that snuck out in the middle of the night and placed a few plastic pink Flamingos in another neighbor's yard. That person in turn snuck them into another neighbors yard, and from there it turned into a game in which no one knew when they would wake up and find the plastic birds in their yard.

[Jeepnokc]

My neighbor's volleyball team raises money this way. We were flocked a couple of weeks ago. Woke up with 40 flamingos in the yard. They then disappeared again that night. We made a donation to have some of our friends flocked. You can also pay for flock insurance to keep from being flocked. Cute fun way to raise money