Say It With Flowers

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Smokey the Bear served a long and honourable career in the Department of the Interior as the spokesperson for the forest fire prevention campaign. His face and message were on thousands of signs, posters, fliers, TV spots, and in magazines and newspapers all over the USA. Indeed, over the decades this educational campaign was credited with significantly reducing the incidence of forest fires caused by human negligence. So successful was it, that when Smokey Bear reached mandatory retirement age no-one raised a voice to keep him on, even as a civilian consultant. He just wasn’t needed anymore.2

It was a very depressed bear that said goodbye to his ranger’s uniform and peaked hat, and went home to his cave for a well-earned retirement. Ranger’s pay scales being paltry, he had not been able to save any money. And given the miniscule nature of government pension payments for animals [no equal pay for equal work], he was also a very poor bear. He started to write his memoires, hoping to keep body and paw together with a publishing deal.3

Surprisingly, a few months after retirement, he received a job offer from the Federal Aviation Agency. It happened in this way…4

America had entered a very romantic era in its social history. Sweethearts were sending flowers in exorbitant numbers as tokens of their love. Florists, of course, were very happy with this growth in business, and began advertising in earnest, and not just at traditional times of the year. This of course, caused an even bigger growth in flower sales, Americans having been conditioned to accept any advertisement. This made Pavlov and Skinner very happy. The florists of America were becoming wealthy.5

With all this new wealth, the florists began looking for entertainment and lifestyles into which to ostentatiously pour their newfound riches. Some bought yachts, or mansions, or Lamborghinis. But most, to everyone’s surprise, began getting pilot’s licences. Florists held private fly-in conferences, or attended Oshkosh, or held air-races over the Tulip fields in Holland, Michigan. Everywhere there were florists filling the skies with aeroplanes of all descriptions: antiques, acrobatic, ultra-lights, biplanes, monoplanes, twin-engine executive aircraft, warbirds. The skies were crowded with novice pilots.6

And then the inevitable began to happen. Florists began crashing, colliding in mid-air, having takeoff and landing accidents. The fatalities began rising at an alarming rate all across the nation. The FAA became very concerned about all these florist fliers in the air. The day after Valentines Day was the worst on record for air crashes, as florist took to the air to celebrate the greatest sales figures ever. Finally, the FAA had to act. Not that there was much they could do.7

Those florist fliers who hadn’t yet crashed had not broken any laws. All were properly certified pilots. All had airworthy aircraft; and had passed their medicals. They could not be grounded or their licences revoked. They couldn’t be taxed out of the skies; as long as they carried flowers in their planes it was a legitimate business expense. The FAA had no control over the florist shops, and any move to do so would have violated the Interstate Commerce Act. The FAA was stymied, until someone remembered Smokey the Bear. 8

They could have an educational campaign to encourage florist pilots to exercise more restraint and better pilotage. So, Smokey was hired. Posters, magazines, TV, the florists’ professional journals, all began running the new Smoky adds.9

Dressed in a Florist deliveryman’s uniform, and carrying an open box of a dozen long-stemmed red roses, and standing in front of a coffin, Smoky imploringly proclaimed: 10

“Only YOU can Prevent Florist Fliers.”11