Playland
Sat., August 6, 09:50 AM
Playland is an old amusement part in Rye, New York – not far from Stamford, where my dad was born. (So were we, of course, but you need to know how far back I’m talking about.) It was opened in the late 1920’s and was considered innovative for its time, although there were plenty of similar parks before it.
Playland was an easy ride from Stamford, especially as the highways improved, and was always one of my father’s favorite outings. He took my mother there when they were dating. Those rides weren’t quite her cup of tea, but she always accompanied us when we went. Other kids might talk of Coney Island, but driving to Coney was a long way for a car. The easiest way to get there was to take the train to New York, then the subway out “that-a-way.” Not only was that expensive, but we carried so much with us.
A typical family outing began with a stop at the kosher deli, where Daddy bought corned beef, rye bread, barrel pickles, and wonderful mustard. (Corned beef signaled a celebration; other times we just had salami, which was a lot tastier in those days before Hebrew National dumbed itself down.) Mother had usually packed some fruit and a pitcher of juice. (She didn’t believe in giving kids a lot of sugared soda.) As Daddy drove, Mother would assemble sandwiches to pass to the back seat, along with the fruit and juice cups. It occurs to me she might have trusted us with the fruit, but she never did. Mother didn’t go on the rides at Playland; there were plenty of benches where she could sit and watch people while Daddy played with us kids.
Daddy loved to bring people to Playland who had never been there before. Many years later he brought my cousins D and R, who were visiting from California. They liked it better than Disneyland!
I was looking at Playland’s web page last week. They have a lot of new rides I never heard of – and probably wouldn't try if I were there. But they still have some of the old ones we loved. The Carousel – the nicest merry-go-round I ever saw until I visited The House on the Rock in Wisconsin. The Whip – both adult and kiddy sizes – which traveled sedately around an oval till it came to the end, where your car was grabbed and Whipped around to the other side, which was just as calm. The Ferris Wheel. We didn’t go on the Dragon roller coaster, because Daddy didn’t like roller coasters. I rode it once as a teenager and swore I’d never do it again.
I didn’t see any mention of fun houses. There were several of them, including one whose sign read “FVN HOVSE.” I know that our favorite, the Magic Carpet, burned down many years ago and was never rebuilt. Maybe it isn’t so funny to have puffs of air to raise women’s skirts when all the women are wearing slacks.
For a quiet change, we went on Ye Olde Mill, a boat ride through the dark that was probably designed as a “tunnel of love.” You’d come around corners from the dark to see brightly lighted “scary things,” which were supposed to scare a girl into her boyfriend’s arms, I guess. That sort of thing is out of date, but Ye Olde Mill remains because kids just like the ride. It’s so gentle that they don’t even have seat belts, just a reminder to keep your hands inside the boat.
Strangely enough, it was a news item about Ye Olde Mill that brought me here today. What a pity! It wasn’t like that episode of “CSI” either; the kid’s mother wasn’t with him.
Today’s illogic: Medicare. It generally covers a great deal of our medical costs, and I’m well acquainted with it, as Husband has had Medicare for twelve years now. But there are days when I don’t know what they are all thinking.
They pay for my mammograms, and they covered the stereotactic procedure. If my cancer were to return, they would pay for all the extremely expensive chemo and radiation. However, they will not pay $200 a month for the prescription of preventative medication. Who’s paying these bean counters?
