Balloon handlers share their experiences in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
When most people are fussing over Thanksgiving dinner, Kathy Kramer is pulling on a white jumpsuit and reporting for duty. The 57-year-old New Yorker is a longtime balloon handler in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the iconic tradition that attracts 50 million TV viewers.
“I’ve marched alongside the band Menudo, driven a golf cart with Phyllis Diller dressed as Mother Goose, and have flown Garfield and Kermit the Frog,” Kramer tells Yahoo Lifestyle of the famous balloons that have sailed down the 2.5-mile Manhattan route from West 77th and Central Park West down to the flagship store in Herald Square.
Although the helium balloons are anchored to a golf cart, the handlers — anywhere from 70 to 90 assigned to each balloon — grip the lines’ plastic handles, called “bones.” Becoming a balloon handler was a bucket-list item for California writer David Jerome and, in 2012, after 18 months of writing emails to Macy’s associates, he won the Thanksgiving lottery.
Doug Donaldson of Beacon, N.Y. wanted to become a balloon handler because “it seemed like a very ‘NYC’ experience,” the 54-year-old tells Yahoo Lifestyle.
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