Blowed Up Real Good

I came across an article in the September 5th issue of The Sandpaper, a free New Jersey weekly, that made me think right away of that classic SCTV sketch - the Farm Film Report- in which all kinds of things get "blowed up real good."  There was a story in there by intrepid reporter Juliet Kaszas-Hoch that recounted that day back in 1957 when local citizens decided to dispose of a dead whale on Brant Beach by packing it with dynamite and blowing it up, with (what should have been) predicably disastrous results:

"As the whale burst apart...blubber flew sky-high, 'then splat! - it hit the roofs" and decks and people.  [Herman Joorman] remembers a woman in a fancy mink stole clambering along the beach to escape the falling chunks of whale when a piece of bloody blubber smacked her right in the mink, 'spun her around like a top," and knocked her to the ground.  Post explosion, 'there was whale blubber all over everybody', [Gary} Gore remarked.  Whale meat hung from the nearby houses, said Gore, 'and then it started rotting.'  And it stank."

The story ended "like so few stories do, with rocketing chunks of whale blubber breaking through the windows of oceanfront homes."   Sadly, The Sandpaper is not available on-line, but I can bring you the next best thing, because this is not the only story which ends this way.  In the 1970s in Oregon, another dead whale was plaguing an oceanfront community.  Not having learned from New Jersey's mistake, this time they caught it all on film.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.  Especially if it blowed up real good.

Comments

[Janice Brown]

Tim,

What can I say... I was crying (with laughter) after reading your post and following the links.

Brant Beach (part of Long Beach New Jersey) apparently has had a more recent sighting of a whale, or at least a sighting of something. Be forewarned, people pronte to motion sickness or seizures should not watch this :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpWAwJzc2Bg

Janice