Ex-Stein Terrestrial Pest

Wednesday, June 26, 2007

The club's members tuned into popular entertainment – movies, songs (like Merle Haggard's), and television shows. When Steven Spielberg's box office hit E.T. hit the theaters, the club quickly reinterpreted the alien giving it a Yooper twist in their 1982 third place float, the “Ex-Stein Terrestrial Pest” featuring a massive mosquito with a forty-foot wing span that flopped up and down every time the float rolled over a pot hole in the street. The club not only called the mosquito the ETP but also dubbed it the "County's State Bird ", referencing the exaggerated size and real ferocity of the region's mosquito population. Along with the ETP, another wagon accompanied the monster insect carrying “picnicking beauties clad in ancient costumes” (Sept 9 100/36). Other members, dressed as cans of bug dope, chased costumed bees around and alongside the float. In emblazoned letters, the float announced that “25 years of Float Building has driven us Buggy.”