The Daily Feather — Harold, the Everyday Baseball Man, Plays Hooky

Rising 46 feet into the air, Harold was no more than an “Everyday” man, like any policeman or firefighter, albeit one with deflated feet. That was the sole snafu on a crisp, clear Thursday in New York City where the high was an agreeable 49 degrees. A singular snag meant something given the day was centered on an event that kicked off at 10:00 am and did not end until 11:45 pm that night. The occasion: The 20th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the first whose route began at 77th Street and Central Park West before being rerouted in 2009 to allow for changes made to Broadway and Times Square. Pin-striped, capped, and a catcher’s mitt in hand, Harold, a.k.a. The Baseball Player (whose feet were inflated in future parades after being retired and refurbished after the 1946 parade) was joined by five giant balloons, 16 floats, six marching bands, and dozens of comic heads. Scenes of the 1947 film classic, “Miracle on 34th Street,” were shot during the Parade after the film’s production team vetted the event at a parade planning meeting to verify live would go smoothly.

While we can’t say with certainty what the job market was like on that Thanksgiving Day in 1946, when Mom was born, we’d guess seasonals played a hand in those who were, and were not, on the job around the holiday’s festivities. You see, the Department of Labor (DOL) only introduced its weekly initial jobless claims series in 1967. By then, mom was 21. She’d celebrated her birthday on Thanksgiving Day only two other times by then – in 1957 and 1963. But she did have 1968 to look forward to, when the holiday would again fall on her date of birth. Since then, Thanksgiving and blowing out the candles have coincided eight more times, including this year – her 78th birthday.

Seasonals when the day we feast on turkey so late in the month are as messy as the meal clean up.