So I just learned a fun little story editing this book on Tucson.
During the Great Depression, people were outta jobs, lost their money, despondent as all get out, as you can well imagine. Well, in the Tucson area, one newspaper editor decided to try to cheer families and kids up by hiring Santa to appear for a parade. Standard stuff, right? Well, he thought, let's take this to the next level and hire a guy to jump out of a plane and parachute to the site dressed as Santa, and then they could start the parade. Brilliant. Given the times, though, many people were self-medicating with alcohol, including the guy the editor hired. So he was out. Next best thing? Find a department store mannequin, slap Santa's clothes on it and the parachute, get it on a plane and give them instructions to pull the cord as they shoved it out over the site. When he reached the ground, they'd swap out with some earthbound person-Santa and the parade could proceed. Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, what actually happened is that they did not pull the cord when they shoved him out. And given that he was a mannequin, he could not pull his own cord. So, for all the families and children watching below, it looked for all the world like Santa plummeting earth-ward and smashing into the ground at whatever the terminal velocity for a mannequin is. Parents were furious. Children just came apart at the seams. Absolutely undone distraught. Crying for hours. And all of this happened, remember, during the Great Fucking Depression.