A Knott's Berry Farm Selection
I have some random scans from Knott's Berry Farm, odds and ends that are either orphan slides or leftuggies.
This first one is from May, 1971 and features a hardworking blacksmith hammering a piece of red-hot iron into horseshoes, presumably for use on the hooves of the horses, burros, and other four-footed employees. I'll bet this fellow had an interesting story - how many people were still making their living smithing in the 1970s? Notice that the wall behind him is etched with what I assume is a variety of brands. I think I see the Lazy and Frankly Kind of Smelly "R" ranch brand!
Hello, Mr. Monkey, how do you do? For many years, Knott's had an organ grinder with a cute little capuchin monkey to gather coins. Entertainment from the Old World.
From 1959 we have this nice look at the Ghost Town water tower, which was located next to the Railroad Depot ("Population 93" the sign seems to say) and in front of the Calico Mine Train ride. The water is down by 4.5 feet; once my gas tank gets below half, I start to get nervous, and I'm feeling the same way right now.
And finally, here's a 1967 view of the bustling street in front of the Silver Dollar Saloon. The star of the photo is the kid with the wrap-around shades, he knows he's too cool for school; maybe he grew up to be in DEVO.
Stay tuned for more Knott's Berry Farm scans!
24 comments:
Major-
Wow - how great to see a blacksmith in these 'modern times'. I believe our young friend sporting the 'Devo shades' is doing so in order to upstage the lady standing behind him - who's going for 1st place in the Towering - Big Hair Contest.
Thanks, Major.
I wonder if that monkey ever threw "stuff" at the guests? Or if he ever bit a finger off? Or if he was trained to pick the pockets of the guests who didn't voluntarily give him money?
Nanook, that's not hair. The lady just bought a cotton candy, and her hands were full at the moment, so she stuck it on her head. It's remarkably easier for her to balance, than a book or a jug of water.
That kid in the shades keeps asking people if they are Sarah Connor.
I know you date these based on how they are stamped or things written on them or the boxes they come out of, but I think the date might be off on the water tower photo. You can see part of the Calico Mine Train mountain complex in the background, and that didn't open until November of 1960.
Thanks for the trip to Knott's!
Funny. Sick minds think alike. I always quickly view the photos and then read the commentary (sorry, I have no manners) and the first thing I thought was "future DEVO fan" when I saw that kid. Like they say, "his future's so bright he had to wear shades".
Nice batch of Knott's photos. Thanks
The closest most of us get to blacksmithing these days are the traveling farriers that care for horses and make their shoes.
Major, I have a very early memory of giving a coin to a monkey, I couldn’t remember where. I think this was the little guy, the ages, places and costume all line up. Thank you!
JG
Sunglasses kid and beehive hair lady are cool but Mr. Mariachi (or matador?) behind the post is one I wish we had a better look at.
I remember giving coins to the monkey, totally forgot about it until I saw the pic. If the monkey bit your finger it was part of the experience. I think they gave you a band-aid if you asked. Massive lawsuits weren't in fashion yet. Knott's was such a different place in the early days. No admission cost, you just walked in. Parents would drop kids off and we'd run around all day for free.
Grant, I was just thinking the same thing about the guy in the toreador jacket!
I used to have a souvenir nail a blacksmith gave me at a living history museum village. And a page made on an antique printing press from the same visit. Both lost in some move or another.
Always love to see Knott's photos. I was there yesterday for the final day of Boysenberry Festival - closed the place out (at 8 PM!). I will miss these food festivals Knott's came up with. A leader in that department!!! Besides the food, which was awesome, I will miss the quiet of the park as there were no roller coasters and screaming - very peaceful.
Yesterday the blacksmith was a hoot! Waiting for the coals/fire to get hot enough he was telling jokes. Had quite the crowd around listening and watching.
Nanook, I remember watching a blacksmith at Knott’s when I was a kid, it was always fascinating to see that glowing hot metal, and to see the sparks fly when it was hit with the hammer. You ain’t kidding, that lady has crazy hair!
TokyoMagic!, I’m starting to think that you don’t like monkeys. They can’t ALL throw “stuff”! I don’t know if anybody was harmed by one of the monkeys, but I do remember seeing a sign in some photos, “Please don’t tease the monkey”; I can only imagine what a thoughtless, cruel child (or even adult) might do. Cotton candy hair, GENIUS! “TokyoMagic’s Edible Wigs and Now Toupees Too”.
Chuck, Cyberdine would be smart to make a child-sized Terminator, nobody would even look twice as it strode toward them in cargo shorts, light-up sneakers, and a “Rick and Morty” t-shirt. The most effective robot assassin ever! And you are so right about the date being wrong, I scanned it so long ago that I’m not sure how I gave it that pre-1960 date. Probably drunk!
Alonzo, hey, DEVO is great! I loved them back in the day, and saw them live at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I bought a souvenir “energy dome” that cracked before I even got it home. Now I’m trying to remember the name of the band that sang, “The Future’s So Bright…”, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Later, for sure.
JG, there are still some folks around who have horses in Thousand Oaks (where my mom lives), and there is an equestrian center in Burbank where my friend Mr. X’s wife boards at least one horse, so maybe they use those traveling farriers that you referred to. I’ll have to ask Mr. X! I don’t ever remember getting that close to a real monkey, but at this point, I might have forgotten.
Grant, I can only assume that the man in the mariachi outfit must be a Knott’s employee - but good eye, because I didn’t notice him. He was completely camouflaged by that wooden post! ;-) You’re right, if a monkey bit a customer these days, it would be “game over”. I do have to wonder if kids scared the poor creatures often, by being too aggressive. I don’t remember Knott’s from the pre-admission days, but my and my siblings still had fun being dropped off and having the run of the park!
Melissa, now that you mention it, I remember the Knott’s blacksmith giving a horseshoe (I don’t know if it was a reject, or an old worn shoe) to a young girl who was watching nearby, I was so jealous!
Irene, you are a party animal! It must have been neat to be there with none of the noisy coasters going - a rare experience for sure. Very cool that there was a blacksmith doing his thing yesterday!
Thanks for the Knott's photos! It's unrelated to Ghost Town, but I just saw that they replaced the neon K on top of the Sky Tower with a new sign made of light bulbs, so it works again. Here's the slightly overdramatic video.
Fun batch! The blacksmith really gets his clothes dirty on the job. I like the outfit on the monkey; I wonder if someone at Knott's or its owner sewed it. It looks like the leash was attached to the hat but I hope not, a yank on the chain would hurt. The patterns in the last photo! That lady looks like an extra from the movie Hairspray all right. Thanks for the post, Major.
I remember seeing photos of an Organ Grinder and monkey on Main St. USA. I'm wondering if Mr. Monkey was a contract player and made visits to multiple places (?) He kind of looks familiar :) I had some experience with Monkeys in Kenya (went there to find myself...I'm still looking...), they are cute and sweet ...until they are not. Beware: don't corner them and don't try to take their candies away from them! Super smart creatures that know how to disassemble window framing, go into your room, find your luggage...unzip it...and take out (with a flourish) all of your belongings looking for the smallest treat. I thought I was robbed until Mr. Monkey was there under a pile of clothes with a guilty look on his face. Baboons...another thing...not remotely cute....large and aggressive and can chase you for miles. Don't mess with them unless you are armed. You are warned. We never went to Knott's as kids. I'm not even sure if my parents knew that it existed...and we were shipped off to foreign lands during Summer. As an adult I finally saw it during "Knott's Scary Farm". It was indeed creepy and scary....and one time was plenty :)
Bu, I hear that our Major Gorilla comes with that same warning: Don’t corner him and don’t try to take his candies away from him!
Nifty Knott's photos. My cousin's husband used to be a part time farrier for some of the stables around Tucson back in the 60s-70s. He looked similar to that guy, right down to that look on his face.
Thanks for the clip, Andrew. Quite a production.
Melissa, I finally found that WWI scarf my grandmother used to wear in the garden, babushka style. The map in case they got lost during the war. That probably happened regularly.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/737675613966279593/
Thanks Major.
@ Andrew-
Yes, just slightly overdramatic, but still a nice [very] abbreviated documentation of the change. Thanks.
DrGoat, thanks for sharing that mapbushka.
I used to carry an evasion map of Baghdad in one of my cargo pockets every time we rolled out of the compound on my second tour. It was printed on waterproof paper rather than cloth (which would have made it a bit noisier than I'd like if I were actually having to use it to evade my way back to friendlies), but the graphics were easy to read and were printed in the reverse of what you'd expect on a map - dark background and light print and road lines. I suppose that was intended to make it less reflective, particularly in the dark, and make it easier for you to hide, although the light-green-tan-and-grey tiger-stripe uniforms we were wearing made it kind of difficult to blend into the dark regardless of how reflective the paper in your hands was. The only place that camouflage pattern was effective was in a gravel pit or the utility uniform aisles of your local Air Force base's Military Clothing Sales Store.
I thought about keeping it after my tour as a souvenir but there were no replacement copies available (this was after the combat force withdrawal in 2011 but before the fight against ISIS kicked up in 2014 and we didn't have the printing infrastructure we'd had just a couple of years earlier) and I figured my replacement might need it. Besides - it would have made a terrible babushka.
@DrGoat, that scarf is awesome! I love the border of crests around the edge!
Andrew, thanks for that cool news! And you’re right, the video is pretty dramatic - but I guess they had to try to make it interesting. It does look great with those LEDs.
Kathy!, Actually, the blacksmith’s clothes are totally clean, they just have fake dirt painted on my artists. I have the feeling that Mr. Organ Grinder either sewed that little monkey outfit himself, or had his wife do it. Unless Woolworth’s used to have a “small monkey” section! I’ll bet that lady went through a whole can of hairspray every week. Goodbye, ozone layer!
Bu, I have a few photos of an organ grinder at Disneyland, but the monkey looks different. If I wish we could see the actual gentleman in charge of the monkey (OR IS HE?) so that I could tell for sure if it was the same man. I’m sure monkeys can be terrifying. And I have no desire to get near a baboon. All you have to do is see them bare those canines. I’m surprised you never went to Knott’s when you were a kid, but going off to foreign lands sounds like a pretty great adventure too.
Lou and Sue, you have clearly found my old police reports! I’d like to say that I’ve changed my ways. Only I haven’t.
DrGoat, ha ha, “that look on his face”… you mean kind of bewildered? I remember watching a PBS documentary about an old-time blacksmith, it was actually pretty fascinating. And very cool that you found your grandma’s WWI scarf! Thanks for the link to the photo! It looks more ancient that the WWI era, somehow. Very neat.
Nanook, yes, and no dumb narration (I’m looking at you, Disney) trying to convince us that something lame is actually wonderful.
Chuck, the thought of being lost in the general Baghdad area sounds somewhat terrifying, even with the best map in the world. I’d think that a lot of people around there might not be so thrilled to see or help you? Maybe I’m mistaken. I was going to ask if you kept your map, but you answered that question! I wonder why you weren’t wearing the desert camo that I’ve seen on many uniforms? Maybe you did spend lots of time in gravel pits. I mean, they are pretty fun. I’m sure your replacement was grateful to have your copy of the map but it seems crazy that they didn’t have enough to go around (apparently). Glad you made it home safe and sound after all that!
Dr. Goat, thanks for the link to the map scarf! What Melissa Said!
Chuck, in those circumstances I would not have stirred outside without a map. Last thing needed there would be to be Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot, as my IRL Army advisor would say. Thanks for leaving your map for your replacement.
JG
Major, by that tour, the only service wearing desert uniforms was the Marine Corps, and they had their own distinct pattern that was different from the three-color Desert Combat Uniform (DCU) that the rest of the services started the 21st Century with. Thanks to the Marines' example, every service senior leadership cadre wanted their own distinct combat uniform, and every single uniform development program ended up with its test results overtly influenced by or outright overruled by leaders who were never going to wear the blasted things in combat just so their own service could look unique. That led to things like Airmen and Sailors detailed to Army units being singled out by snipers because they looked different. Don't get me started.
Major and JG - yes, Baghdad was not a good place for an American to get lost, but we were not universally hated, and by 2012 there were only a couple hundred of us left as advisors or managing equipment sales to Iraq, so we weren't involved in combat anymore. That also meant that if you got lost, there was no American Quick Reaction Force coming to get you, either. Your best bet was to do everything in your power not to get lost in the first place. To know where you were going, the main routes there, the main routes back, how to operate the contract security team's radios, and what their call signs were. And to clean your weapon every week and rotate the ammo in your magazines at least every other week (I did it twice a week). And to carry your d**n weapon - it does nobody any good locked up in your room. You do not have permission to die.
The Air Force team I was on had a lot of people from the acquisition world who had never been on a deployment before, and their lack of experience showed. They also went to a very basic, two-week course that taught some rudimentary combat skills which was better than nothing but was really more suited to the Airman on a forward air base who was never going to go outside the wire.
By contrast, the advisory part of the team went to a month-long course that taught us a lot more about the language, the culture, combat driving (we were actually taught - hands-on - how to ram other vehicles and push them out of the way), and how to focus on security all of the time. We carried dummy weapons at all times and dealt with surprise "active shooter" incidents inside the classroom. They trained us to be paranoiacs. We were specifically told by the school commander that we did not have permission to die, and since all of us had been to Iraq or Afghanistan before, we had a different perspective on what could go wrong.
That difference in training, experience, and outlook led to some truly incongruous encounters. The major who wouldn't carry her weapon because it was inconveniet. The group of officers who didn't bother to load their weapons, post a guard, or lock their office door after a "shelter in place" order went out. Or the guy authorized to wear civilian clothing who rolled out on a mission outside the wire inexplicably wearing a bright red polo shirt.
Me: You sure you want to wear that?
Him: [puzzled] What?
Me: Didn't you ever watch Star Trek?
Him: No. Why?
Me: [stunned for a moment that he managed to escape the '70s without seeing Star Trek] [takes deep breath, exhales] Just remember this - Custer was wearing a red shirt at the Little Bighorn.
Him: [continues smiling, doesn't seem to register significance of second cultural reference]
Me: See you when you get back. [And he did get back, thankfully.]
And people wonder why I preferred deploying with the Army...
JG, I don’t know what Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot means, but I’m sure it’s naughty!
Chuck, I had no idea that the design of combat uniforms was such an issue, and that everybody wanted their own unique design. Wasn’t there somebody higher up to tell them “Here’s what you get, now shut up”? The thought of Airmen and Sailors being singled out by snipers is awful. I would think that for most servicemen, NOT getting lost would be one of the top goals. And yes, you don’t want a weapon to jam, just like they do at the worst times in movies. I’ve seen footage of roadside bombs going off as a convoy of military vehicles is trundling along, and it makes me glad that I never had to deal with something like that! It’s also sobering to hear how inexperienced some of the new people were. I guess I always assumed that everyone went through weeks, if not months, of intense training. The month-long course you referred to seems almost like it should have been a requirement for everybody. But hey, nobody asked me! Not carrying a weapon because it was “inconvenient”? What the heck? And wearing a red polo shirt sounds like something out of a bad comedy. WasCuster really wearing a red shirt at Little Bighorn? I’ve never heard that before!!
Major, you would be correct to assume that. Since GDB is a family blog, I will not elaborate.
JG
A polite form would be "lost like a motley fool." A less polite version would substitute the last two words.
There are a couple of higher authorities to tell the services what to do (the SecDef, the President, Congress), but in general, they tend to let the services do what they want to do with uniforms.
Different people with different jobs have different levels of field experience and a different understanding of the threat and the environment they are in. The Air Force is the most office-bound of all of the services, and the acquisition career field is about as far as you can get from being expeditionary other than research and development people. But a two-week combat skills course that is the first introduction to fieldcraft in a career is a bit light. Contrast that with the two-month, Army-run Combat Advisor Course I attended prior to my first Iraq vacation assigned to an Army advisory team (the Army was spread pretty thin by 2010, and the AF and Navy augmented a lot of the team positions with common, cross-service skillsets like intelligence, communications, logistics, and medical), and that wasn't my first rodeo with the Army, either.
Not trying to make myself sound like some hard-bitten, combat arms guy who spent two tours kicking in doors and sets off airport metal detectors because of all of the shrapnel I'm carrying around, because that's definitely not me. I'm incredibly blessed that I was never shot or blown up, and I never had to shoot at anybody, either. But you have to be ready for that if you are going to be in that environment and want to come home upright, and that takes a certain mindset and way of looking at the world or you can fail at that task. It takes training and constant review of those skills, thinking through "what would I do if..." so you're ready when "if" happens. And, unfortunately, some of the people I was there with didn't have that mindset.
They aren't stupid people. They are very good at their Stateside, garrison jobs. And they're good people - they love their families, pay their taxes, tell funny jokes, and volunteered to serve in uniform when they didn't have to. I'm glad we're on the same side. But I'm also glad that things didn't go bad, because I think they could have gone very, very bad.
And I guess I was remembering this painting (a copy of which hung in my grandparents' basement) and conflating Custer's red scarf and the red shirt of the Indian scout who appears to be aiming at him. No eyewitness account I've found today describes what shirt he was wearing, only that he had removed his buckskin jacket in the heat and had it tied to his saddle as he was last seen heading off the what became the battlefield. But the dialog is accurate as spoken that fateful day in early 2013.
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