I must relay this story to you - just in case you haven't seen it. It has been covered by a number of media outlets. It started for me when I saw a small, humorous article in the Globe and Mail. It covered the 50th Anniversary of the Blow Up the Dead Whale story. The Globe's 'punch line' was that the town in Oregon where this strange event occurred on November 12 1970 has named a park Dead Whale Park in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 'blow-up' event.
So I was really intrigued when Day 6 on CBC said they were interviewing the reporter who covered the story for U.S. news in the first place. His story was on preserved on tape and has gone viral every so often. It has to do with his alliterative language during the live coverage. He says there isn't a day goes by without someone referencing this story and his report. His son particularly likes to replay the lines to him.
Paul Linnman was on-site in November 1970 to report on the explosion of a dead beached whale in Oregon. State highway officials decided that the only way to get rid of the decomposing marine mammal was with a half tonne of dynamite. It would 'dissipate' somehow.
"As soon as we got out of the car and were still a good distance from the whale, and behind sand dunes, the smell hit us. I mean, this thing had been rotting for a few days and the smell is beyond description," he told CBC Radio's Day 6.
"We realized things weren't necessarily going well when we started hearing chunks of blubber hitting the ground around us, which you can also hear in the video," he said. (A car was destroyed - owned by Paul's friend. His friendsaid the car dealer he got it from had a sign out front inviting people to get - 'A Whale of a Deal'- Paul went and checked at the time and could confirm this)
In his alliterative voice-over of the clip, Linnman quipped that “land-lubber newsmen” became “land-blubber newsmen … for the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.”
His closing line: “It might be concluded that should a whale ever wash ashore in Lane County again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they’ll certainly remember what not to do."
The original newscast video is in the CBC story HERE. Or HERE from the New York Post.
The sculpture on the lake shore in Kingston - with the Skylum sky - was a Betterphoto Finalist for September. I'd just noticed it the other day.
