A Boy's View of Playland

A Boy's View of Playland

Most everyone enjoys an amusement park. Whether we delight in being

jolted and swung by some 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 Whitney's 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 boy's first love in an amusement

park, and Playland offered almost more stimulation than I could stand. The

Fun House featured a giant rolling barrel to run and tumble through, a huge

flat wheel that flung riders into the wall, and a hardwood slide about four

stories high. Near the Fun House was the Diving Bell, a converted Navy

rescue cylinder that descended thirty feet into a shark-filled tank 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 found ourselves in

the second pair of seats from the front, rumbling up past the sign that said

"RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK," and watching the panorama 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 peak offered almost as good a view as the first, if only

our eyes had been open. When the ride was over we stepped shakily out,

grateful to be alive and ready to brag in school on Monday.

Quieter, but no less interesting, were Playland's exhibits. A

favorite was the Crime Does Not Pay building, which contained grisly

artifacts from man's brutal past. I would linger in the gloomy halls of