Transcript

(light piano music)

To the editor of the Baltimore Sun, sir.

Of all the utterly asinine ridiculous feats,

this is certainly the silliest ever conceived

by anybody and made worse

by the sanction of the more silly

and ridiculous parents of the said children.

In my opinion the children should be soundly spanked.

(retro music)

I think the last kind of carefree silly generation

is the 1920s.

It was a reaction to the end of World War I.

It was throwing off of the Victorian Era.

Women got a right to vote.

They drove cars, they had jobs.

Hems went up.

Freud liberated people through sex.

Jazz, movies, goldfish eating.

And polesitting becomes kind of just another craze.

(jazz music)

Polesitting is the wonderful piece of the history

of Baltimore city that unfortunately most people don't know.

[Frederick] I think this started as a bet, couple kids

emulating Shipwreck Kelly

who was the greatest flagpole sitter of his time.

[Narrator] Iron rings swept Manhattan skies.

Famed flagpole sitter has vowed he'll hold his perch

for as many hours as it took Lindbergh

to fly across the Atlantic.

But just the whole notion of it's so insane.

Sitting on a pole.

Why?

It was accessible, you could do it.

Anybody could put a flagpole up and be a pole sitter.

And most of these were kids

say between the age of 10 and 15.

They would sit on a pole as long as possible

to try to set the world record.

(bell dinging)

My brother said we're gonna do this.

And he was nine, I was six.

That was late in the afternoon as I remember.

Dark came on.

And my brother said we can't.

We can't sit up here in the dark.

So we came down.

We lost.

Our record was about,

I guess we were up there all of six or seven hours.

Neighbors came out and watched.

Even the mayor of Baltimore came and celebrated.

So pole sitting was just kind of a weird reflection

of a long tradition in American history

that the average person could become a star.

When the first patter of rain fell yesterday afternoon,

Avon stood up and calmly announced to his manager-brother-

publicity agent.

What?

What the?

Had a publicity agent?

We were six years old.

Seven years old, he's got a publicity agent?

How do you feel, Dorothy?

Fine.

You remember how long you've been up there now?

18 days.

And how long do you intend to stay?

I'll stay to Christmas.

In the 1920s, women become much more visible.

So for young girls,

I think it's a fascinating example with pole sitting.

That they think that they can do that too.

All over Baltimore, boys and girls took to the tops

of trees and poles so rapidly

that in one issue, the Baltimore Evening Sun

reported 25 boys and girls ranging in age

of 10 to 15 years in the contest.

I do know that some boy was supposed to go up to the tree

but he got cold feet.

And Ruth said I'll go.

And off she went.

And she never came down.

(laughter)

(retro jazz music)

I think that kids can be inspirational

for every generation.

And the pole sitters remind us of that.

Being able to have a good time and showing their ability

to sustain and look forward and be positive.

People want to flock to that.

It was a vivid moment.

But that vivid flame was extinguished pretty early.

It never carried over.

Nobody ever heard of it ever since.

Is pole sitting the first great fad?

It's probably the first great fad

that was perpetuated through the media.

It's the Youtube of the 1920s.

Being able to do something

that grabs at public attention and makes you

a media star, that's the kind of thing that I think

is just a legacy that connects polesitting

with planking and other kinds of modern fads

among young people today.

People wanna be a star.

And I think people wanna be a star in the 1920s

and they wanna be a star in the 21st century as well.

(twinkling)