2011 June 29 - Wednesday

This was Playland Day! Family fun since 1928!






Visiting Playland is a Dwyer Tradition. When I first met Mark's family, one of the very first things we did was go to Playland. I'm not sure when they moved into their current house, but previously, at one point in the 1960's, the Dwyers, then a family of three, lived near the old amusement park.




I enjoy the rides (although I would have enjoyed a few more had I been wearing my contacts), but what I like about Playland are some of the old attractions from the early 1920's. The Dragoncoaster is a mostly wooden roller-coaster. Part of the attraction (?) is that people were shorter back then, so sometimes it seems like I'm about to be decapitated by some of the wood beams in the ride's structure. I think what I like are some of the old posters for the Dragoncoaster; but the really cool thing is that the operator controls the ride with a Really Big Lever -- I think it's about four feet long and it looks like you need to work out a little to move it.


The architecture of Playland has an Art Deco feel to it. I like the light tower at one end of the arcade.








But what I remember most about Playland is the carousel -- it's from something like 1910. I had romanticized the horses, because reviewing the pictures I took, there's something frantically wild about these ones. They all are pulling hard against their reigns, and their eyes have a sad, terrified, or calculating cast.

They reminded me of the carousel from Something Wicked This Way Comes, and in my storyteller's mind, I wonder what invocation has bound these beasts to the wheel -- and had it been some wicked enchanter's trap or had it been a well-deserved punishment?


We stayed until the park closed.