November 12, 2003
Happy Feast Of The Exploding Whale!
Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to cast our gaze backward into our state's illustrious past and fondly remember that fine November 12 in 1970 whose events will forever live on in infamy:
It happened on November 12, 1970. The carcass of a sperm whale had been rotting on the beach just south of Florence, OR for several days. At the time, the Oregon Highway Division (now called the Oregon Department of Transportation) had jurisdiction over beaches and decided to dispose of the whale the same way they would clear a large boulder from a highway construction project. The rest is history.
Once believed to be nothing more than an urban legend, it came to the attention of the nation through a column by Dave Barry, which circulated via the Internet.
But what also circulated the Internet was the video file (mov) of a KATU news report by Paul Linnman -- from the scene of the incident itself, filmed during the incident itself. You can read a story on this from KATU itself:
Anything left over, officials reasoned, would be taken care of by seagulls and other scavengers.
The KATU cameras stopped rolling immediately after the blast, but Linnman recalls making his way out of the area as huge chunks of blubber fell everywhere.
A parked car over a quarter of a mile from the blast site was the target of one last chunk. Fortunately, no one was hurt as badly as the car. However, everyone was covered with small particles of dead whale.
Paul Linnman, in fact, has written a book which takes its title from this event. And be sure to check the newsletter article from the Oregon Department of Transportation from 1994, and the 25th anniversary article (jpg) from The Register-Guard.
But what's this thing in the headline here? Simple: Starting today, at long last, November 12 is hereby proclaimed to be Feast of the Exploding Whale, an Oregon-original holiday. Just what does one do to celebrate the Feast of the Exploding Whale?
Well, I've never quite worked that part out. Feel free to contribute ideas in the comments to this item. If worse comes to worse, we could all just stuff ourselves on seafood until we burst.
Comments (1)
myrln on 12 Nov 2003
Or perhaps a great inflatable whale in downtown Portland each year to which would be lashed those politicos who did least for the city in that current year and the whale then exploded. They could be deemed Ahabs. All in good fun, of course.