On the sea or on the land

[austin_dern]

One of the things which had drawn us to the pier was the promise of fireworks at 9 pm, and we might have been more alert to when they were happening if we actually knew when that would be. I don't have a watch, though, and if bunny_hugger had one I didn't notice. I wasn't watching for it, anyway. But in any case as near as we could determine there wasn't any fireworking. It's possible we were too self-absorbed to notice; it may have alternatively been that the nagging threat of thunderstorms made responsible people nervous about setting off fireworks. You know how touchy these people who work around explosives get at sudden and unpredictable bursts of millions of volts of electric potential for some reason.

But another attraction was the promise that somewhere on the pier was an antique carousel, this being another of her interests. All we had to do was locate it. There was clearly no carousel on Casino Pier, so we walked down to find the other pier, which opened up into a respectable-looking arcade with a carousel as the centerpiece. We hopped on happily, and this looked good, although it was also clearly not an antique. Fiberglass only goes back so far. It seemed odd that this might be the carousel my father had told me about, but it was possible too. Fiberglass has to become antique sometime, doesn't it?

But past that ride we walked out onto the other pier to look around rides we didn't have tickets for and for which our wrist straps would have been inadequate anyway. There were several roller coasters here, including another Wild Mouse actually dubbed a Mighty Mouse here; there was also a roller coaster which promised five gees in a loop which looked to us like it wasn't actually attached to the track around it. There also weren't any people riding it, so we couldn't see how, if at all, this fit together. What really drew my attention was the sign outside it which attempted to brag about the construction of the roller coaster. The thing is, the sign was broken into horizontal lines with other messages interlaced to it. My theory was the sign was meant to rotate around several messages, but it had broken down, and the signs were mixed together. We hoped we would hang around long enough to see the ride in action.

Trivia: The International Olympic Committee officially warded the 1920 Olympics to Antwerp in its meeting at Lausanne on 5 April 1919, barely sixteen months ahead of games which normally required four years to prepare. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968, William Manchester.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I always wear a watch, and so was wearing one then. It was around nine, I think, when we got up and started walking around again. I actually had forgotten about the fireworks until I thought about it the next day, but I'm sure they must not have set them off. It would have been hard to miss, I'm sure.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I wonder why I didn't notice your watch, other than the more fascinating thing being the person wearing it. But yeah, either way, it really would have been hard for us to miss the fireworks. They must've not launched the for some reason.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Fiberglass only goes back so far.

Glass fiber filled epoxy dates from sometime before the Second World War, although it wasn't a common material. Owens/Corning had a display of the stuff at the '39/'40 World's Fair. After the War, of course, it was everywhere. I'd not be surprised if your father rode Fibreglas carousel Horses as a boy.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that metal, aluminum I believe, was the common choice for horses in the decades immediately after wooden horses ceased being made. In any case, the carousel we saw there was, I believe, a Chance "antique-style" model with fiberglass horses modeled on famous antique figures. It seems to be the most common type of carousel installed in recent years, although it always looks very inauthentic to me because of the implausible mix of figures in different styles and from different carvers. Probably most people don't notice that, though!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, there we go. I'd just started a frantic Google search for information when it'd be much more sensible to see what you knew first.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain that he would have, actually. The transition to fiberglass horses seems to be under-documented -- at least, obvious keywords bring up descriptions of classic wooden animals with some talk about fiberglass replicas -- but one essay, http://coehd.utsa.edu/Special/Pathways/THE_CASE_OF_THE_CAROUSEL.pdf (http://coehd.utsa.edu/Special/Pathways/THE_CASE_OF_THE_CAROUSEL.pdf) seems to suggest that after the golden-age of carved horses, carousel animals switched to aluminum, with possibly a change coming during the Korean War when it was more important that aluminum be put to the war effort than to amusement park rides. But the evidence trail is very slim; it might be that carousel makers just scaled down production for the war.

In any case, if this were to hold up and I don't know that it would, then my father would be around ten years old before the fiberglass horses started being made, and I don't know whether he'd be going on them at that point, at least until he started dating.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

The era of wooden carousel animals came to an abrupt halt, all at once, with the depression. The only one of the classic manufacturers to stay in business was the Allan Herschell company of North Tonawanda, NY, which they did by switching to having wooden-bodied horses with metal heads and legs (carousel geeks call these "half-and-halfs"), and later, all-metal horses. Eventually Herschell was bought by Chance, who make most of the fiberglass carousels you see now (including, I think, the one at the Freehold Raceway Mall).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's roughly what my reading turned up, although the history of producing metal-component horses and then the change to fiberglass seems to be underdocumented. Or it may be that that it's just not a history that the Internet handles well.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

The former Herschell factory in North Tonawanda is now a Herschell museum. I suspect if one could find that information anywhere it would be at that museum. I hear they run their carousel very fast, too. I hope I can go someday.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's likely, yeah. Hm. There ought to be at least some kind of general history too, somewhere, that's been written down even if it's a trade press sort of book.