James Etheridge

If you were a Boomer and grew up in Atlanta, you rode the Pink Pig Flyer at Rich’s Downtown at Christmastime. I’m not sure what salmon colored swine have to do with Christmas, but it was a tradition just like decorating the tree, school plays and the Sears Wish Book.  You went to Rich’s with your parents, visited Santa Claus and rode the Pink Pig.  The Pink Pig Flyer was a train that ran on a monorail which was mounted on the ceiling of the store.  It left from the building, traveled along the top of the four-story “Crystal Bridge”, which connected the two Rich’s stores on either side of Forsyth Street, then circled The Great Tree and finally went back inside over the “Wonderland Of Toys” toy department.  Afterwards, you received a cloth sticker to place on your overcoat confirming that you had ridden The Pink Pig.  That sticker would stay on your coat for the remainder of the winter.

Rich’s Downtown was the year-round epicenter of shopping in Atlanta.  There was a bus stop at the end of our driveway in Gresham Park.  I remember getting on the bus with my mother, riding downtown to Rich’s for shopping and lunch at The Magnolia Room, and the bus dropping us off right in front of our house.  This was in the days before Wal-Mart, Amazon and online shopping.  My friend Terri told me that in high school, she and a friend would get on the bus and ride down to Rich’s to shop and their parents never thought twice about it. Those were different times.

In high school, we had our Senior pictures taken at Rich’s downtown.  We received a card in the mail telling us a date and time to be at the photo department.  I’m not sure about the girls, but for the boys the only thing they specified was to wear a white shirt.  They had a rack full of different size black jackets. You found one that fit, clipped on a bow tie and presto, you were wearing a tux in your picture.  I had a little bit of fuzz on my upper lip of which I was quite proud.  The photographer informed me that it would show up in the picture.  He said to take the elevator down to the men’s department and ask to borrow an electric razor.  So there I was, walking through Rich’s wearing a tux jacket with a bow tie, a white shirt and blue jeans.  People kept asking me for information or directions, and I would inform them I did not work in the store.  I explained the situation to the gentleman at the men’s counter.  He handed me an electric razor and I plugged it into an outlet on a support pole.  I groomed myself, with people walking by gawking and snickering, then went back upstairs and had my picture snapped.

The lighting of The Great Tree on Thanksgiving Night kicked off the beginning of The Christmas Season in Atlanta.  A huge fir was brought in and mounted atop the Crystal Bridge.  The video to the right shows the lighting of the tree in 1989.  Thousands would brave the elements to experience the spectacle.

I once read that the Yuletide Porkers were purchased from a carnival and introduced at Christmas, 1953.  There were two trains.  One was named Priscilla, the other Percival.  Priscilla had eyelashes and Percival did not.  I can still hear them rumbling by overhead.  Even as a child, it was novel to see a train with the smiling countenance of a pig traveling around the ceiling.  On the back of each Flyer was a big curly-cue tail.  Oink, Oink.

When I was ten or eleven, I was in Rich’s with my parents and as Priscilla or Percival passed overhead I heard someone call, “Jimmy!”  I looked up and it was my friend from school, Richard, waving at me from the window seat.

I actually rode the Pink Pig Flyer again as an adult.  At some point in the Eighties, the Flyers were moved out of the building altogether and onto the roof.  They went around the Great Tree, and I took my five-year old daughter to Rich’s to ride The Pink Pig.  I squeezed in with her, as did a Dad with his daughter in front of us. The train lumbered across the roof and around the tree.  About halfway through the ride, I tapped Dad in front of me on the shoulder and said, “Is it me, or was this thing was a lot bigger when we were kids?”  He couldn’t even turn around because his head was wedged against the window, but he said, “Yes, much bigger.”  My daughter enjoyed the ride thoroughly, but I have to say that I was disappointed.  A lap around The Big Tree in the middle of the day just wasn’t the same as going around it on the Crystal Bridge at night, then back inside and over The Wonderland of Toys.

Rich’s Downtown closed in 1991.  The Flyers were moved to the Festival Of Trees at the Atlanta World Congress Center, another wonderful Christmas tradition gone by the wayside.  The monorail was installed on the ceiling, and Priscilla and Percival made a grand loop over the Christmas Trees Of The World.  My daughter and her friend rode the Flyers several times, so I am happy that she was able to enjoy an experience similar to the one which we knew as children.

After the Festival Of Trees was discontinued, the original Pink Pig Flyers were donated to the Atlanta History Center.  A new ride opened up under a tent in the parking lot of Macy’s at Lenox Square featuring a little train that runs along tracks on the ground.  The train is shaped and painted like a pink pig .  I have never seen it, nor do I care to.  It is not The Pink Pig.  It never will be.  I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.  –J.