Today in 1988, a strange moment in Green Bay, Wisconsin: a Packers game got interrupted by a turkey named Henrietta.
She was the main character in a prank, though nobody knew this until a few years ago, when one of the humans who knew about the prank fessed up.
Trish Kurowski explained that an ex-boyfriend was frustrated that the late 80s Packers were not playing to the standard set when Vince Lombardi was their coach.
And he’d remembered that in 1973, a pheasant had found its way onto the field; that gave him an idea for a kind of public protest.
Kurowski says the guy bought a 15 pound live turkey at a local farm.
It cost $20, but when he explained his idea, they sold it to him for ten, on the condition that the bird couldn’t get hurt.
The ex-boyfriend brought Henrietta the turkey to the stadium the day Green Bay was hosting the Indianapolis Colts.
He hid the bird in a box behind a beer truck, which may sound weird in our time but back then security was different; people could bring coolers and large amounts of food into the building.
He removed Henrietta from the box in a stadium bathroom and then hid her under his coat (though the bird did stick her head up to sneak at least one peek).
Around the end of the first quarter, he ran up to the front row, opened up his coat and let Henrietta loose.
(If a turkey runs onto a football field, does the referee call a “fowl”?)
As the bird ran onto the field, he ran out of the stadium.
The authorities knew right away this was a prank, even if they couldn’t figure out who was behind it until 2018.
Fortunately Henrietta didn’t take the fall for the humans: she got a pardon from the governor of Wisconsin and spent the rest of her life on a turkey farm.
And while the Packers did lose that day’s game to the Colts, kind of proving the ex-boyfriend’s point about how the team was playing like turkeys, they did manage to turn things around, bringing two more Super Bowl titles to what has remained a mostly turkey-free stadium.
Today in Las Vegas, the Indoor Environmental Healthcare and Hospitality Association presents its Housekeeping/Environmental Services Olympics.
Teams of hospitality workers show off their skills in events like the Mop Relay and Vacuum Race.
I bet a good team could really clean up here.
‘Fowl’ play: Woman reveals truth about Lambeau Field turkey prank (WBAY)
IEHA Housekeeping/Environmental Services Olympics
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