A Boys View of Playland :: Amusement Parks Essays

A Boys View of Playland approximately anyone enjoys an amusement park. Whether we delight in being jolted and swung by well-nigh wild ride, or enjoy the quieter pleasure of munching a candy apple while the younger ones squeal their way round and round, we feel a natural attraction for such a place. But none that I have seen as an adult, from Disneyland to Six Flags, measures up to my boyhood memories of Whitneys Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. Playland was wonderful because of the rides, the exhibits, and most of all, the people.Obviously, exciting rides are a boys first retire in an amusement park, and Playland offered almost more stimulation than I could stand. The caper House featured a giant rolling barrel to give-up the ghost and tumble through, a huge flat wheel that flung riders into the wall, and a hardwood skid about four stories high. Near the Fun House was the Diving Bell, a converted Navy rescue cylinder that descended thirty fe et into a shark-filled armoured combat vehicle of seawater and exploded back up again, creating a miniature typhoon every five minutes or so. But nothing matched the Ride in the Clouds, a scarlet roller coaster whose roar and clatter were audible a block away, even over the pounding of the surf. Walter Sparks and I had to work up our courage a long time before we dared ride that one. Finally, though, we frame ourselves in the second pair of seats from the front, rumbling up sometime(prenominal) the sign that said RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK, and watching the cyclorama of sky and sea. Then the coaster tipped over into a heart-stopping dive, plunging down, down, until we had knifed underground into a roaring tunnel that blasted us skyward again. The next broadsheet offered almost as good a view as the first, if precisely our eyes had been open. When the ride was over we stepped shakily out, grateful to be vivacious and ready to brag in school on Monday.Quieter, but no less int eresting, were Playlands exhibits. A favorite was the Crime Does Not Pay building, which contained sick of(p) artifacts from mans brutal past. I would linger in the gloomy halls of