The Pink Easter Duck,
Southern California, 1957
Neighboring rooftops, a Queen Anne palm and a wood fence, white-washed like Tom Sawyer was just there, provide a perfect backyard backdrop for a young man sporting a tight plaid shirt with a tiny, bias-cut patch pocket. While all the other kids were dyeing eggs for Easter he was dyeing the family pet duck. The rare hot pink quacker is proudly shown semi-caged in a plastic turquoise laundry basket. The unusual tradition continued every Easter until the duck died.
Speaking of eggs, Easter is the biggest day of the year for incredible edible treat. But unlike every other day of the year when were buying what’s inside, for Easter we’re only interested in what’s on the outside — the shell. We gleefully colorize and embellish them then play hide and seek with them in the garden.
Like Christmas, Valentines Day and Halloween, you can’t celebrate Easter without candy. But unlike those other holidays on Easter you don’t have to work for it. In fact, you don’t even get asked if you’ve been naughty or nice. Seduction and trick or treating aren’t involved either. On Easter candy is beautifully presented by the brightly-colored basket-full packed in shredded plastic called Easter grass and wrapped in cellophane.
This isn’t just any old kind of candy either, it’s Easter specific. The egg shape is popular, almost as popular as the superstar of the holiday, the Easter bunny. He appears on his big day countless forms but never more importantly than in chocolate.
Here’s to Easter eggs, bunnies, bonnets, pink ducks and you!
Charles – brillant !
my friend Kent and I used to relish in the midwest Easter glory growing up in Wichita Kansas… I wish I could share with you the TV still card that was used over and over… “HAPPY EASTER, CHANNEL 10″ (guess you had to be there) in later years that was all I needed to say to rise a giggle out of him. Anyway best of Easter JOY to you and thanks for helping document all of our lives and I hope Kent is able to see your site from above.
.w.
Pink duck, schmink duck.
How could you not mention this kid’s unbelievable hair?!?
How does he have the time to both style the hair AND dye the duck? A 1957 multitasker!
Okay, the haircut is scary, the shirt probably last fit him when that duck was just an egg, and the poor duck looks like it just came from a bloody knife fight. Did I mention the scary haircut? Yikes!!
AFLAC, indeed! Happy Easter, Charles!
What? No mention of those tall TV antennas? Almost forgot about that till I saw this photo. Anyone remember what San Diego looked like in the early ’60s? Lots of very tall antennas.
If I am not mistaken, the haircut looks close to what they used to call a Detroit with Fenders. Not quite the same but probably evolved from that style.
Long live Kodachrome
Charles, your perceptional genius arises again with your witty commentary on this slide. My fence needs another coat of paint (it’s orangish-red now). I wonder what a white-wash would do for it. I know it’s probably a little late to get directions from Tom on this, but where can I pick up 5 gals of white-wash, and please don’t say Office Depot, it’d take forever emptying out all those little containers. What inspiration! My imagination blossoms and my spirit soars higher and higher! Thanx again for everything!
Oh, and by the way, isn’t that a young Tom Cruise in the slide. What a lucky duck!
The tall antennas suggest that it most likely WAS in San Diego; the greater LA area didn’t need the tall masts, thanks to Mt Wilson. By the way, I am of the era of the guy in the picture; it seems that most of us in those days couldn’t afford good attire. It was a different time. It was a wonderful time even with cloths that didn’t fit. I would love to show you some of the pictures of me in those days, Charles. They are not all that different from this picture.
Happy Easte
No wonder the duck looks terrified – that haircut is a “D A”, or more commonly, a duck’s ass.
Cathy
I am absolutely certain that I do not have to comment on the incredibly bad etiquette demonstrated by dyeing a duck . The horror! Animal abuse is always out of style! So I will move on to give a few suggestions to Jets Member #18 From West Side Story in case he is getting ready to go in to Easter dinner. I am certainly hoping that he at least puts a jacket on over that teeny tiny shirt. Do you suppose that is Mr. Switchblade’s Easter Shirt and it is perhaps a tradition to photograph him in it? A lovely tradition, no doubt, but one the family should’ve given up about 3 sizes ago.
I have turned this week to _Etiquette for the Teens_ (yes, “the teens”) by the Home Institute of the Detroit Evening Times (1937). A little dated for Rebel With a Pink Duck, but I am a firm believer that good table manners remain remarkably constant. I have turned to a subsection entitled “Don’t” in the “Table Manners” chapter. I hasten to add that this particular etiquette book is written like a story with the boy’s story of good etiquette on the left hand side of the page and the girl’s on the right. We follow the travails of Bill who goes from a shy and dateless football star to be a hot party ticket. Again, these are Bill’s “Don’ts”:
Bill doesn’t play with the silverware; or make designs with crumbs on the tablecloth, or gulp food and wash it down with water; or crumble crackers and bread in his soup; or dunk; or use a handkerchief at the table if he can avoid it; or refuse dishes that are offered to him; or blow on hot liquids to cool them; or use a toothpick; or scrape his plate hungrily; or look at other people’s plates; or comment about the food he is eating unless it is an occasional word of praise; or stack his dishes or push them aside when he has finished a course; or shovel food with his fork; or mash and stir it around on his plate; or speak about offensive subjects that affect people’s appetites; or hammer the salt-and-pepper shakers; or talk with his mouth full; or smack his lips; or chew noisily; or hunt through food on a serving dish for the piece he prefers; or act greedy in any way.
Whew. I hope The Wild One can keep all that straight! Although I suspect him as a salt-and-pepper shaker hammerer if there ever was one. And you KNOW he looks at other people’s plates.
Happy Easter and Peppy Passover!
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
WHAT THE DUCK????
We never dyed a duck (for any occasion) but once my father decided to dye a pair of tan pants green in the bathtub. Our white cat, Isabel, was in the habit of jumping into the window over the tub, but couldn’t make it in one leap from the edge, so she had to jump down into the bathtub first…..you can imagine what happened next.
At the sight of a cat that was green from the chest down, my father laughed so hard he cried. Isabel didn’t like being laughed at, and peed in his slippers in retaliation.
I have to agree,that it does resemble a laundry mishap.He should never wash a white Duck with colors.As for the haircut,I cannot comment,I remember Grandpa’s Summer crewcuts.If you all get bored this Easter,stick a Marsmallow Easter candy in the microwave,It will swell up more than a hundred times it’s normal size{Great wat to impress new inlaws!)As always,Thank you Charles,And happy Holidays to all of you.
His hairstyle reminds me of an old Leave It To Beaver episode where Wally horrified his parents by deciding to follow along with some of the “cool” kids at school by greasing up his hair and wearing it in a similiar fashion to the kid shown in this wonderful slide.
How do you even get hair to do that? I’ve been imagining the methods one would require to achieve such a ridiculous ‘do, but I haven’t settled on a technique that sounds quite right. It does look a bit like the duck sat on his head at some point, but I assume this hairdo was intentional….though I can not imagine why. And I thought the 80′s produced bad hair!
Look mom, he followed me home. This looks like something you might see on a Leave it to Beaver episode. You don’t see a pink duck everyday.
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Dear Charles,
I am late on this one, but I remember going to Woolworth’s as a kid and they had the dyed chicks and rabbits. All different colors just like they had come from the Paaz factory!
Mother never let me or my brothers get any of the dyed critters, but we did get a rabbit one year.
That poor bunny – we treated him well enough but he bolted to freedom one day when the screen door was ajar. Poor Mr. Jack Rabbit was not as swift as he could have been – seems that hopping across our living room is not the same a sprinting away from wolves.
He made it to the door but, at the last moment, the door snapped shut on one of his long, floppy ears!
He suffered a bad cut across half of his ear which gave new meaning to our chosen name for him: Floppy.
After that mother said his life would be more suited on a “farm” so off he went. We had heard about pets going to the “farm” and knew not to pursue the matter.
Hearing that the Pettermans, our German, down-the-street neighbor, had had hasenpfeffer the following Sunday did not make us suspicious at the time, but in retrospect, I have always wondered.
Warm regards,
BB
Perhaps the shirt isn’t too small. Maybe he has massive pecs. That duck could be heavier than it looks.