Photo Essays
Tiny Town, USA – Okay. So they weren't rubber ducks. They were plastic. We have yet to find out where the ducks were made. On Sunday, April 25, 2,727 of these toys, "billed" at five bucks a piece and purchased mostly by local residents, were launched from Cascadilla Falls (or so we are told, we weren't there for the launch) and in a pelting rain, bobbled downstream in clusters and flocks toward the finishing line just beyond the zodiac footbridge between Willow and Lake Streets.
Fifty "winners" announced at the 2010 Cornell Cooperative Extension Duck Race, sponsored by numerous area enterprises. Although extension online promotions referred to rubber ducks, none of the contestants were made of anything more than plastic manufactured in a foreign country where rubber ducks are still considered a delicacy. In appearance, these were not traditional toy ducks as some old school folks recall, but exotic hipsta ducks sporting sunglasses, an absolutely unnecessary accessory considering Sunday's dismal quench.
Back at extension headquarters there were booths, a petting zoo of sorts with actual ducks; alluring, but decidedly non-dolphin safe music performed by a group no one ever heard of before, led by a very familiar white guy with a low-tar cigarette voice; tee-shirt sales, compost displays (not to be confused with the cheap grub) and games; and, inside the facility, face painting, electric shows and the slow business of accounting for each duck launched. The elaborate tabulation system proved trying for the duck sorters and certainly germs and viruses prevailed. Ducks within certain groups of numbers were sorted and binned, then placed on numbered spaces on a waterproof sheet atop several folding tables. Volunteers were in full control of the situation and no injuries were reported although several contestants lost their heads in the race. Tears were shed. See slideshow.
Since Tiny Town Times purchased several ducks that didn't place in the top 50, we have decided to be really spoiled sports and send you to the following site for more information: http://ccetompkins.org/4h/activities-events-0/prizes-winners.
The day's events included a 5K race and we couldn't be less interested in the outcome of that if you paid us back for the ducks.
All proceeds from duck purchases go to supporting Cooperative Extension activities that we wholeheartedly support. It is one local as well as statewide program supported through EduCorp's efforts (and monies from New York taxpayers) that we fully endorse without reserve. We also like the Paleontological Research Institute, but not as much.
– Clayton Derson, Special to the TinyTownTimes
All photographs by Frankie14850, staff shutterbug
