Here it is, our first story of Christmas insanity for 2011.
Now that we’re officially done with Thanksgiving in all its glory of parades and turkey and football and family and the follow-up of Black Friday pepper-spraying shopping maniacs, we can now legitimately turn our focus toward Christmas.
The city of Chestertown, Maryland hosted its annual Christmas parade on Saturday. I’m sure it was filled with marching bands, floats and plenty of folks sporting elf ears or Santa hats. There was also one man dressed to resemble the cartoon snowman that came to life. This Frosty the Snowman landed on the wrong side of the long arm of the law. It turns out to be a case of he-said/snowman-said with both offering different versions of the moments just before and after arrest.
Kevin Michael Walsh, a 52-year-old man dressed up like Frosty the Snowman, was arrested by Chestertown police, who say he became agitated when they tried to escort him away from the crowds of people watching the parade. The official story is that Walsh/Frosty scuffled with the policeman and kicked at the officer’s police dog.
Walsh, who says he has dressed as Frosty in the parade for a decade, claims the officer took umbrage at his comments about the police dog’s presence. His version of the story tells of him only getting agitated after the officer tried to arrest him. This snowman wasn’t literally breathing fire, but he did get hot under the collar.
I’ll let you be the judge of if a man dressed as Frosty that kicks at a police dog tops the news story of the man dressed as Santa who robbed a bank in 2009.