Category Archives: Amusement

Mr. Disney, we need you back here on Earth.

My happy place. It was clean and well-kept and certainly a happy place for me to be. I had looked forward to being in this place ever since Walt Disney talked about it on his Wednesday night Disneyland TV show. Finally in 1955 the theme park opened to the general public. But what was noticedContinue reading “Mr. Disney, we need you back here on Earth.”

Put duct tape over her mouth.

Play Lobamba When wife and I lived in Sacramento, California we sometimes drove east on US-50 up to Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We drove up to the adjacent town of ‘Stateline.’ Stateline is where the big casinos and it’s numerous entertainment venues were on the Nevada side of the California/Nevada border. WeContinue reading “Put duct tape over her mouth.”

Book Report: I thought they fired him.

Book Report After he left the Saturday evening public radio show under a fog of impropriety, Garrison Kiellor really never went away. Still writing his brand of small town prairie humor and taking his show on the road. We noticed his coming appearance on the Brady theater in Tulsa a year or so ago. NeverContinue reading “Book Report: I thought they fired him.”

It was the organ that made me skate.

The marvelous Wurlitzer organ. Some of the older and larger downtown movie theaters had a mighty Wurlitzer organ. Put into service back when movies were silent and needed some underlying musical theme to carry the action. The bigger and older ones were huge as they are today. About the size of a Volkswagen beetle. AContinue reading “It was the organ that made me skate.”

I do not want to end up deep in the ocean.

It was proclaimed to be the tallest wooden frame roller coaster west of the Mississippi. Had you driven south on Atlantic Boulevard back in the 1950s from East Los Angeles all the way to Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach you would have certainly notice the tall wooden structure known as the “Cyclone Racer.” RollerContinue reading “I do not want to end up deep in the ocean.”

Ron’s grandma, Ron, and me.

Intergenerational laughs. I would often go home after school with my friend Ron. Ron lived with his grandmother in an apartment near our high school where Ron and I attended. I knew her as Mrs. Powell, a savvy senior woman and an up-to-date on current pop culture. And for certain a good cook. I wasContinue reading “Ron’s grandma, Ron, and me.”