A few days ago I read a rumor that there was some loose talk emanating from upper management at BP that the best way and surest way to deal with the Gulf oil spill they caused was to nuke it. I forget where I read that, but it just goes to show that there's no situation so bad that concerted human effort can't make it worse. Case in point: the sad and funny history of Smelly Dave.The folks in charge have nutty ideas sometimes. The folks in charge of anything, anywhere.
So in 1970, when the Oregon Highway Dept. had to deal with a dead gray whale named Smelly Dave washed up on the beach in the town of Florence, they decided the best way to dispose of Dave's fragrant carcass was to blow it up with 20 cases of dynamite, which they proceeded to do.
The results were disastrous of course; that was a terrible idea. However, the results were also really funny, but only if you weren't there.
They ended up with a worse mess than they started with. It looked like about half of Dave was still lying on the beach after the explosion, and hundred-pound chunks of blubber were spread out over about a mile.
Poor Smelly Dave. May he rest in pieces.
2 comments:
You should be aware that the original Smelly Dave was kind of a (fictional) recurring character on the old Bob & Ray radio comedy series in the 1940s and 50s. Supposedly Dave was taken to various parts of the country as kind of a tourist attraction, and Bob & Ray would enact man-on-the-street interviews to get residents' reactions to the large decaying whale.
yes, I do remember that, and also that it was hard for them to interview anyone because once the tarp was pulled off Dave all the spectators left to get away from the smell of decaying blubber.
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