August 16, 2018 (Thursday)
August 16 is National Roller Coaster Day. Before Disneyland and Six Flags parks, there were traveling carnival rides and special amusement parks. One such park was out on South Main in Houston many years ago. Its name was Playland Park and it was located fairly close to where the Astrodome would one day be built. It featured a huge roller coaster.
The date was sometime during the Second World War, and my uncle, Lloyd Lowe, had not yet been drafted. He took me various places from time to time. We went to Playland Park and rode the roller coaster. As the car containing our seats slowly but surely traveled up the first and highest point in the ride, I was frightened, and I got down on the floor in front of the seat. My uncle started laughing about it and just as he laughed the car let go of the chain that had pulled to the top of the ride, and zoom!– down the car went on the first dive of the long ride. The “g-forces” of the dive held my uncle’s neck in a very uncomfortable position until the car started to go up on the next high point. My uncle’s neck bothered him for about a month after that.
On another trip to Playland Park, my sixth-grade teacher took me, my friend Troy and our friend Patricia. The teacher, Miss Peters, bought us hot dogs and let us ride our choices. One of the rides had the passengers in a basket-like container of seats. It went around like a merry-go-round and slightly up and down also. But this ride had another dimension to its action. The seats and their container at the end of long rods went up and down high into the air. The basket also went round and round in itself. Well, Patricia, loaded with junk food, took the ride while the rest of us waited. As she went round and round, up and down, and spinning around as she went, she rose up in her seat, begging us to get her down. Then, inevitably, she lost her lunch as it went spinning all around the park. Most unpleasant experience then, although it brings a slight smile today as it is remembered. There was a slogan: “Don’t hurl on the Tilta-Whirl.”
Playland Park was small compared to Six Flags and Disneyland, but was big in comparison to the small rides here and there in the city. Most were some form of a carousel and usually small. It was while Walt Disney was watching his children on one of the small rides that the idea of a giant happy place where families could spend the day came to his mind. Disneyland and later many other such places appeared around the nation (and sometimes around the world).
So, celebrate National Roller Coaster Day. Click here to see the web site about it.