The original “leg lamp” featured in the holiday classic “A Christmas Story” was a divisive “soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window” in the Parker family home, but the much larger display in Chickasha, Oklahoma, is credited with helping inspire a California businessman to invest millions in the city’s Main Street.
Either tale might seem as imaginative the BB-gun loving kid Ralphie in the holiday classic, and yet, anyone driving through downtown Chickasha can attest a 40-foot replica of the leg lamp, standing atop a 10-foot crate labeled “fragile,” is now on permanent display in this city of 16,000.
The same day a crane operator was dropping the giant lampshade into place, one of those who stopped to watch was Chet Hitt, a California businessman driving through town after a 40th reunion at his high school in nearby Anadarko, Oklahoma.
