THE LUER MEAT ROCKET
By Wesley Treat of Weird Arizona (to be released fall 2006)
"We have news for you!" Steve LaVigne and his cohorts called out as they hopped down from their vehicle. They had pulled up in front of Prescott's Daily Courier with what they considered a big story.

LaVigne had called up a construction company and requested they help tow a payload to his property in east Prescott. When they found out his cargo consisted of one 35-foot-long rocket ship, they said they'd do it for feathery just wanted to take it on a joyride.

"We might as well have a little quickie parade downtown. Freak out the people on Whiskey Row," LaVigne recalled with a snicker. "So we did just that." Plus, they figured they would drop by the offices of the local newspaper and garner a little publicity while they were at it.

Oddly, the Courier wasn't interested. A Jetsons-esque spacecraft rolling through town and they didn't even bother to take a picture! So, the crew jumped back in their truck and pulled out. When their odd little one-float pageant was over, they tugged the ship up to LaVigne's place and dropped it off. And that's where it's been sitting for more than 20 years.

Now, it's just another brick in a wall of oxidizing automobilia. Nose-to-tail with aging school buses and pick-up trucks, the rocket lingers in a motionless parade of entropy. It's certainly known better days when rockets in a variety of designs toured the main streets and supermarkets of an optimistic U.S.A., when kids dreamed of donning fishbowl space helmets and defending the galaxy with their pointy-shouldered, jumpsuit-wearing television heroes. It was an era of robots and death rays. A time when men like Rocky Jones, Tom Corbett, and Captain Video toured the cosmos to protect the innocent.

It was also an age when brand-name foods bankrolled heroism. Science-fiction serials were big business in the fifties and proved to be an effective vehicle for promoting marshmallows and sliced bread. One of the most popular space operas of the time was "Space Patrol," starring Commander Buzz Corry, and sponsors like Ralston Purina made the most of the show's popularity by finding inventive ways to tie the program in with its line of cereals.

The most creative promotion, involving what is possibly the most exciting giveaway in history, was Ralston's "Name the Planet" contest. Cadets were to submit, along with the correct number of coins found in Ralston cereals, a name for the new planet that had materialized on "Space Patrol." The viewer to submit the best name would win a clubhouse in the form of a life-size rocket ship! Billed as Commander Buzz Corry's very own "Terra IV," the grand prize was a 35-foot, 10,000-pound, trailer-mounted spaceship, complete with bunk beds, cooking apparatus and equipment lockers. It even came with a truck to haul it.

The Ralston Rocket, as it was nicknamed, had been one of two ships that toured the country, visiting fairs and strip malls in promotion of "Space Patrol" and Ralston Purina. Think Weinermobile, but with a nose cone and fins. When Ralston was done driving it from state to state, they stripped out all the space gadgetry, refitted it as an RV and offered it as their contest's coveted award.

The prize ultimately went to ten-year-old Ricky Walker, but as these things go, Ricky eventually tired of his big toy and the two parted ways. The dream prize desired by millions of cadets was sold to an amusement park in Kansas. Did it eventually end up in the hands of Steve LaVigne? Unfortunately, no. Ricky's rocket was later tracked from Kansas to a wrecking yard in Illinois, then to a cable network in New York, and finally to a construction company hatter of terrors it and sold it for scrap in the 1980s.

There was, however, the second Ralston Rocket–one that was not given away in the contest. Evidence places this twin craft in the hands of Blakely Oil, who used it to promote their "Rocket Gas" following Ralston's campaign. According to a man named Rodney Welch, Blakely then sold it to the Luer meatpacking company. Welch had purchased it from Luer to use in a small amusement park he called Welch's Mountain Fantasy. When Welch closed down the operation, he donated the rocket to the City of Prescott, which subsequently unloaded it onto a local rehab center. And that's where LaVigne found it. He paid a hundred bucks for it.

The craft differs significantly in appearance from the Ralston Rocket, but there are those who have suggested that Luer remodeled the exterior before using it in their own promotions, which means LaVigne's craft is a reskinned Ralston. Yet, there are others who disagree, including LaVigne himself, as further evidence suggests that Rodney Welch had been mistaken about the connection between Luer and Blakely. This would mean the Luer rocket is one of the copycat ships built to take advantage of the hype initiated by Ralston and that the second Ralston Rocket is wasting away on someone else's property somewhere.

So, in the end, it's very likely the Luer vessel is a totally separate ship, built from scratch with some bizarre correlation in mind between meat and spacecraft. Much like Ralston's, it toured grocery chains, but carried cape-adorned space hotties who waved to the crowds and promoted "Luer Quality Meat." That's why most people today refer to the ship corroding up on Sweetwater Drive as the Meat Rocket or the Meat Missile, names for which LaVigne admits he carries no fondness.

Regardless, LaVigne recognizes that the Luer rocket is a hunk of nostalgia in its own right. He considers it an artifact of better days. "Kids would really get a kick out of simple things back then," he says. "Now that we've got all the computer simulations and everything that we've got, simple just doesn't cut it anymore." He reminisces about the 16 mm projection screen locked inside, possibly used by Luer for some kind of anti-vegetable propaganda film. He also speaks with appreciation of the deteriorating sci-fi control panel and the little motor mounted to the frame that vibrates the floor and makes a rockety "hrrmmmm" sound. "That's why the rocket is a cool thing."