Sunday, December 15, 2019

Fun Horsies, May 1978

If you're a parent and you have gone to the trouble of taking your very small child to Disneyland, you'll probably want to get a photo or two over at King Arthur's Carrousel. It's traditional, and it's the perfect thing to send to grandma and grandpa. 

It's a good thing they have this tot securely strapped in, I could just imagine things going slippy-slidey once the ride started turning. And nobody wants that.


Yes, much easier to take pictures when the thing isn't going. I used to try to catch my niece as she went around and around, and it didn't go well.


14 comments:

"Lou and Sue" said...

What a doll! And to think that she could be a grandma by now.

Cute pictures, thanks Major!

Nanook said...

Major-
"... I could just imagine things going slippy-slidey once the ride started turning. And nobody wants that". Well, I suppose. But I was thinking more along the lines of "Strangers On a Train", don't-cha know. 'Hold on extra-tight, sweetie-!!'

Thanks, Major.

TokyoMagic! said...

I wonder why the little girl or her family, would part with these photos?

Nanook, Strangers On A Train is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. "CRISS-CROSS!!!" Bosley was also chased by a murderer, on a carousel, in an episode of Charlie's Angels!

Andrew said...

You can always tell a carousel was made by Dentzel when you see those big mirrors around the center hub. Kennywood's Dentzel carousel looks the exact same.

And TokyoMagic, that is a very good point that can go for a lot of the pictures on this blog!

K. Martinez said...

I guess a selfie-stick would be effective in capturing a pic like this while the carousel's in motion, but those are now banned from theme parks for obvious reasons. Nice pics. Thanks, Major.

TokyoMagic!, I think I've mentioned it here before, but sometimes families lose control of what happens to their family photos for various reasons. Most of my family's photos ended up in the hands of a stranger that was beyond me and my siblings control.

Just imagine those of us who have no children to pass our things onto. Our generations of family photos meet a dead end and end up in the hands of strangers. That is why I gave most of my own family photos to my sisters who do have children to pass family possessions on to.

Major Pepperidge said...

Lou and Sue, now THAT is a crazy thing to think about!

Nanook, “Stangers on a Train” with Robert Walker as the great, creepy villain reminds me that Robert Walker Jr. (“Charlie X” from Star Trek) just passed away.

TokyoMagic!, I wonder that ALL THE TIME! Great photos of a happy family, and nobody wanted them? I hope Bosley wasn’t horribly murdered. Wait, I take that back, I hope he WAS horribly murdered.

Andrew, is that true? I mean, you know so much about those old rides that I believe you, but I never thought about how Dentzel Carrousels had mirrors while others don’t. Good observation!

K. Martinez, I think the world will be just fine without selfie-stick selfies! I’ve never taken a selfie, and don’t plan to start. Wow, I don’t want you to talk about a painful subject, but the thought of your family photos winding up in the hands of a stranger is awful. Why would they even want them?? Don’t answer, none of my business. I’m just thinking out loud. My grandparents and parents took a ton of photos, even now we have boxes and boxes full of them, and I admit that i’m not sure what will happen to them when the time comes to deal with them.

Nanook said...

@ TM!-
Well, [with apologies to Hitchcock], when the "greatness" that is Charlie's Angels is lurking in the shadows...

@ Ken-
Just imagine if Hitchcock had a selfie-stick to "enhance" all the excitement of a 'runaway carousel-!! (If he only knew).

"Lou and Sue" said...

K. Martinez, I'm in the same boat you're in. My husband and I don't have children either, so we've already started giving the inherited family "heirlooms" to other relatives to enjoy and eventually pass down. And the Disney pictures/slides are being shared with Major, here, for all to enjoy now.

My husband and I recently watched Strangers on a Train. We enjoy the old movies. My favorite Hitchcock movie is Notorious - I love the plot, actor-chemistry and everything about that one!

Sue

K. Martinez said...

Sue, I enjoy passing things on to others so they may enjoy them. When you share your Disney photos with us here on GDB they are rekindling floods of warm and happy memories not just for you, but for me and other GDB'rs. I think that gives them purpose and human value. I'm so grateful that you've shared with us. I can tell you that you and your dad's photos have brightened many of my days.

BTW, Alfred Hitchock's "Notorious" is perfection.

Melissa said...

Strangers on a Train is the best! Robert Walker, Sr. had a life that was far too sad and short, but at least he left a body of work that's meant so much to so many. Been thinking about him since reading of Robert, Jr.'s death. My mother saw a kid get badly hurt falling off a county Fair merry-go-round, so she got too nervous to watch us ride when we were little. I *hope* she never saw Strangers on a Train!

There's a vintage 1910's or 1920's "Tunnel of Love" boat ride at Kennywood that would remind me a lot of the one in the movie, except (at least last time I was there) it had been rethemed to Garfield's Nightmare. Gotta get the kids in the seats, I guess!

Warren Nielsen said...

Major and everyone else who has commented here today,

I am just like all of you I guess, looking at these pics that the Major posts for us. We are looking at someone's trips, vacations, families and so on. I often (ok, maybe always) wonder about people we see in them. Did that little girl up there today grow up, have kids of her own that she took to DL and tell them that she rode the merry go round when she was a little girl? Or her grandkids? What has happened to all these people that their pictures, their memories, end up here on GDB? In one respect, it seems quite sad, but in another, it pricks our own memories, both good and bad, of our own lives.

A couple months ago I was tossing newspapers and stuff into the bin at the local recycle center. In the bin I spotted some old photos and pulled them out, just out of curiosity. So here's about 6 or 8 pics of an Army unit at "Bivouac, Santa Ana, 1944." I wonder what the story is or was behind those. A father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin? And just toss them into the bin? Harsh.

I guess I am just an old sentimentalist. They came home with me, for maybe no other reason than to remind me, again, in a little different way, of what family and friends are all about.

Keep them coming, Major. We appreciate all your effort at this little meeting place.

W

TokyoMagic! said...

With the older photos, like from the fifties and sixties, I don't think about the surviving relatives as much or at all. I guess since these pics were taken in 1978, it got me thinking more about how someone from that family should still be alive. But I guess that isn't necessarily the case. Or like Ken mentioned, they somehow end up in somebody else's hands.

By the way, the very same day (Christmas Day, 1998) that the metal "cleat" on the Columbia, got ripped from the ship and killed a man, a 4 year-old boy fell off of a horse on the Carousel and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. Disneyland is dangerous! If it isn't violent fistfights going on in Toontown, then it's something else!

JG said...

Some good reflections in this thread. Thank you.

I inherited a ton of pictures, letters, and paper memorabilia from my mother, it's hard to go through it, even 17 years later.

I found a letter from her uncle in Britain dated 1938. He was predicting the War with Germany and knowing what followed now makes it almost impossible to read.

I'm only keeping things that make me feel good looking at them. I have resolved to throw out the rest of the letters without reading.

I did exactly like the lady in the picture, worried my kids would fall off. I still worry about them, now in their 30's.

JG

Melissa said...

I recently found some postcards that somebody sent to my grandmother from their vacation in Florida in 1969. I haven't found anyone left in the family who can tell me who this person was or about the people they mention in the notes. It makes me feel sad and a little spooked. We are all surrounded by so many ghosts.