Blurzles™
It's always a letdown when I find slides that I think will be "better than usual", only to find, when scanned, that they aren't in focus. It ain't fair! I pay my taxes! But here we are.
Both of today's photos are dated "August 14, 1958", and feature the Suspension Bridge on Tom Sawyer Island. That was a Thursday, the park was open from 9:00 AM until midnight, and attendance is listed at 25, 633 guests (thanks to Jason's Disneyland Almanac, as always).
A conga-line of guests crosses the swaying bridge - even in this blurry state you can see some smiling faces, so everyone's having a good time. With Summer coming to a close, it seems that folks were taking advantage of the few weeks they had left to enjoy the park before school was back in session.
Arg! Blurry! Otherwise this would be a nice portrait of a young girl (watched by Mom nearby) - Dad must have crossed first so that he could look back and capture this view.
9 comments:
Yay! Blurzles!... Well, not "yay", but they are Blurzles. That's an interesting dress the girl in the center has on. Brown, white, and yellow horizontal stripes. And that long red and white ribbon thingy all the way down the front. Is she holding a hat in her hand? Maybe she's part of some sort of performance?
Blurry Girl in the center is about to be trampled by guests going in both directions! Both groups will meet in the middle and...... "Oh, the humanity!" Blurry Girl would be better off jumping over the netting, into the water, and taking her chances with the AEDs!
Well, they aren't that blurry. (We've seen worse.) Thanks, Major.
Are these from the same lot of slides? Reason I’m asking is the woman in the orange top in the first photo appears to be posing for our photographer, but the little girl in the brown dress and orange top is nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps mother and daughter dressed as alike as they could, but the girl was too afraid to cross until after Mom had shown that it was safe. She looks pretty skittish in the second picture, holding onto the handrail cables and trying to balance herself as the walkway bounced. She may have walked out just far enough from this end to prove she was brave and to get the photo, then turned around and unsteadily headed back to terra firma. I was that kind of kid, so the scene is all too familiar to me.
Hope that suspension bridge is rated for the weight.....that's a whole lotta peoples on there....and the only one who looks like he is moving is dad out in front. What are the others waiting for? An engraved invitation. I say that a lot these days with puzzled reactions. I'm not sure if anyone knows what an engraved invitation is anymore....however, I will continue to say it as needed. Tom Sawyer Island is full of fun and dangerous things: I was always bonking my head on rocks in Injun Joes cave. I don't think I ever left the Island without some scrape or bruise: self inflicted of course by shenanigans. This simple life will soon be covered over in Walt Disney World: most accurately depicted in lyrics "paved paradise and put up a parking lot": "Cars". I don't mind the cars, but I do mind filling in history with dirt. I get it....but I don't have to like it. Thanks Major for a Blurzle-ee Sunday morning.
The Island was once a paradise, no question. Like Bu, I never left without a rap on the head from the rocky Secret Passage. I remember once jumping down from the flat area with the teeter-totter rock to the trail below, maybe 7 feet vertical. Obviously I survived, but there’s now a guardrail there so I can’t repeat it.
My Mom just refused to cross either bridge and would wait patiently till Dad and I were done.
And yes, the engineering of that bridge extends well beyond the capacity of hemp ropes. There is steel in there somewhere. I don’t know how the Live Load was determined, or if there was dynamic analysis of potential movement, but the designers didn’t let anyone down.
Thanks Major, there is never a bad picture of Disneyland. Always something to love.
JG
Of course you all are aware that the main weight supporting “ropes” are very strong steel cables covered in a FRP made to look like rope. The “fill in” spaces are weaved around for mostly scenic look using actual rope.
I would guess the bridge was adapted from the temporary cable walkways used in construction, as seen in pictures of projects like Hoover Dam. So there would be reference data on safe live load based on the cable gauge and anchoring methods.
JB, yeah, I don’t know how “yay” I feel about Blurzles! The girl with the unusual dress just looks like a regular girl, I don’t think she’s a performer. But you never know. There are signs on the Suspension Bridge that are supposed to limit traffic to one direction, but there’s always those few who don’t read signs or ignore them. Send them to prison!
Chuck, yes, these are from the same batch, and I thought the same thing about the smiling woman in orange and the little girl - they seem to have no connection. Maybe the lady in orange just has a habit of smiling if a camera is pointed in her direction, and she had nothing to do with the photographer? I have personally witnessed bridge-crossers who were pretty unsettled by the bouncing/swaying bridge, even though it takes about seven seconds to cross it if you run really fast, screaming loudly. Don’t ask how I know.
Bu, I assume that some smart person calculated how much weight those cables could bear, and yet, we’ve probably all seen videos of structures (decks, bleachers, ballroom floors) that collapsed under the weight of a lot of people. I hope it never happens at Disneyland! For a while both of the bridges (the Pontoon Bridge is the other one) were closed on Tom Sawyer Island, I think that at least the Suspension Bridge was redone. But I’m not sure! Yes, I also tend to bonk my head inside the caves, and with that rough wall texture, I’ve had some good scrapes on my noggin. It really makes me sad that they are filling in the river in WDW, and I’ve never even been there. I like the “Cars” ride at DCA, and wish that they figured out some other ride with a similar ride system. It’s dumb to have the same attraction on both coasts.
JG, whoa, jumping down 7 feet is a long way to go! I remember my friends and I liked to go play in a small area of sandy dunes called “Sheep Hills”, and I jumped about that far onto what I thought would be soft sand. Well, it was pretty soft, but I still got a pretty serious jolt. I guess that’s how we learn? Luckily I wasn’t really hurt. I am almost positive that the cables are steel, at least today. I’ve seen people jumping up and down on the wooden planks as if they wanted to break them. Ugh.
Mike Cozart, we can see that there are at least the two main steel cables (the ones that people put their hands on) for support, and I assume that the foot path also has steel cables? Maybe not?
Dean Finder, interesting idea about similar bridges being used in construction, I didn’t know about that.
Having just watch The Bad Seed last night, if Miss Blue Skirt were blonde, I’d be worried for everyone else.
MS
Count me in as a member of the cave head-bonkers. Though we're talking 50+ years ago, so I've had time to heal. I think I need to return to the island and go on the bridges in the very near future. Major, please don't embarrass me with the running and screaming. No Dole Whip if you do so.
Always love the Blurzles. Thanks, Major.
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