CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Where Is The Amusement Of Yore? The red roses are soiled with volcanic ash, but still — I love circuses. I love rodeos, cowboys humping and losing their hats on high-stepping brahma bulls. The PENDLETON ROUND-UP. Their motto: “ Let ’er buck!” ST. PAUL and the MOLALLA BUCKEROO. Festivals of all kinds, including our own sprightly sacrificing-the-maidens- to-the-sailors Rose Fest. Petals on the June ground wither like the lips of lovely lasses and lads. Volcanoes may blow their tops once every hundred years, but lovers and salmon spawn more often. Most of all, I love amusement parks, old-fashioned wooden, grace- i fully carpentered amusement parks. : Gazebos, families picnicking on the i summer lawn. The children waving | sparklers...sputtering curlicues in the I Maxwell Parrish purple dusk...dis- | integrating fireflies...and chortles of | glee. Kids dart and leap in the gloom. | Fireworks are my favorite. I was i born on the Fourth of July, a Yankee i Doodle dandy , like Nathaniel Hawthorne. Which of you is old enough to remember the wooden rollercoaster at Jantzen Beach? There also was an Olympic-sized, heated pool. Near Hayden Island in 1931 closed — with the bewitching monniker — The Lotus Isle Amusement Park. Until ' recently, I saw its Eiffel Towel pipeframe gate, at Delta Park where model airplanes buzz and gnatter. On Council Crest there was a circular ride, with boats and tunnels of love, called “ The Old Mill.” Fortunately, Oaks Park still exists with its nostalgic roller rink and marvelous fireworks display. It opened in 1905, attempting to compete with the Lewis and Clark centennial. What has happened to these artifacts of social diversion? Why have most disappeared and not been rebuilt? I fear amusement in America has changed down through the decades, and sorely so! Many burned down, being constructed of wood, lath and plaster of paris. The Guilds Lake area of the Lewis and Clark Expo — a person I discussed this with suggested — possibly was torched by industrialists. Do arson and capitalism go hand in match? Near Montgomery Wards in the N.W., the giant-log Forestry Building burned down in 1964. It was called “ the world’s biggest log cabin.” The 1905 Lewis And Clark Exposition was a calculated ploy by businessmen to bring tourists and investors to the Pacific frontier. It was a rousing success! “ Little Egypt,” the bellydancer, came. The pop. of Portland doubled in five years. The budget spent amounted to millions of dollars, and it made a profit! Teddy Roosevelt himself opened this world’s fair. A cross-country auto race, Frederic Remington statues (rootin’ tootin’ shoot ’em up cowboys) and spacious walkways, fanciful electric lights, the Willamette meteorite, dirigible flights — it was a handsome effort! What happened to all of that? Bldgs, still exist such as the Dover Apts, or that odd, fort-like, yellow, one block square tenement on Upshur. Near the Evergreen tavern. Who says “ the good old days” weren’t better? Lotus Isle Amusement Park was a victim of the Great Depression. (Don’t feel “ depressed” today? Collectively we feel pessimistic about the future.) After the crash of ’29, people didn’t have money to spend on fun. Located opposite of Jantzen Beach, it couldn’t compete. Lasting only several years (1928-1931?). Glee O’Mara, my 64 yr. old Irish infor-- mant, told me dance “ marathons” were held there. Couples clung to each other, upright, asleep on their feet for days, dancing to win a prize. That desperately broke. He said it had a dangerous scenic railway (synonym for coaster), a canvas mt. with tunnels. Some riders were killed. “ They made the mistake of standing up and waving their arms.” It was called “ The Whizz.” Glee at 13: “ It was a mean sonofagun! It was all I could do to hang on .” Drownings at the bathing beach. “ The Columbia R. was dangerous, the current would change. They’d lose 2 or 3 a day.” An ironic site for fun. (There was a Luna Park in Seattle.) O’Mara — wheezing with asthma attacks — a grand American when drunk on whiskey playing the accor- dian — in 1923 visited Council Crest Park. It too had a scenic railway and a merry-go-round. Glee remembers there was a platform with steps, straw , and a sign. It read: “ BEWARE. DON’T FEED THE OREGON RED BATS” You climbed to the top and peeked over. In the pen were broken red clay bricks. Or “ brickbats.” Observers laughed at you for making a fool of yourself. We enter my era. I rode the “ Big D ippe r,” giant ro llercoaster at Jantzen Beach. I am angry that it isn’t replaced! (Let’s build a new one between Hawthorne and Ross Island bridges, getting rid of Zidell’s junkyard. The plan does NOT fulfill my megalomaniacal adolescent desires for amusement. For beach sand, we’ll use volcanic dust! I’m serious.) I remember the heated pool, probably because there is something sexy about partially clad bodies in chlorine-scented green water. Jantzen Beach closed on Labor Day 1970. Gone with it the nata- torium, boat canal, Golden Canopy ballroom where big bands Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc. played. The funhouse burned in 1959. All that remains is the merry-go-round from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair — at a shopping center. The Oaks is the survivor, and a pretty good one at that! I give them credit. A sense of the past exists here. Located at the east end of the Sellwood bridge. (Those awful condos loom like doom above the houseboats on the river!) Still an atmosphere of diminishment hangs like a pall over the place! It’s ghostly. Like the mural of Father Time or Death lurking with a knife, painted on the wall behind the Loop-dee- loop. Oaks Park has seen better days, but haven’t we all. On Sundays and holidays, 30,000 came by boat launch and special trains. John Philip Sousa on the bandstand. It once was an Ind. camp. The White City of the West. “ The Zip.” Vaudeville. A memorable pyrotechnic display: “ The Last Days of Pompeii.” (Is that us?) In 1926, monkey hotel, cyclone coaster, jazz railway, gladway. Dreamland theater. I miss the spray-like, fountainlike imaginative light fixtures. In 1948, it flooded. They put a “ floating floor” on the skating rink. In 1964, it flooded again, but the floor was saved. (The carousel at Oaks Park is reputed to be over a hundred years old. Imported from Germany. It’s called Noah’s Ark, having many kinds of animals. Supposedly, a merry-go-round has only horses. A carousel of different animals. Look up close at the hand-painted Oregon scenes. Delightful and rare. A bestiary.) We kids used to take the rattling trolley, shooting blue sparks overhead, from mill-town Oregon City to Portland. Stop at THE OAKS. Go rollersakting, fall on your butt. Ride the spinning rocket which made you vomit, nose-diving toward the ground. Even now when I visit, I’m back 20 years. Watching them skate in the rink, to the calliope organ. In waltzing circles, two by two. A grayhaired usher helps a little one get back on her feet. Feeling like a middle-aged Holden Caulfield, I see the whole damn human race, happy as a lark, having fun, rolling on thin boards toward the void. Where’s the Penny Arcade? Teenage amusement arcades have taken over in the way that massage parlors have replaced luxurious bawdy houses. No bed to make love in, i.e. no machine to thrill-ride in, just pinpointing blips on a television screen. It’s cost-effective. Only your brain breaks down as you follow the beeping patterns! Bleep bleep is not the same as the whooshing rattle of metal wheels on a steel track hurtling your body in a rollercoaster dive, as your girlfriend holds on to you shrieking. A Modest Proposal “ Let be the finale of seem. / The only emperor is the emperor of icecream.” Wallace Stevens. The City Fathers (i.e. City Council), the Planning Commission et al ought to designate along the waterfront, between the curving green sward of THE c^fediteiTanean an unusual place featuring 'Wewho sleep on futon sleep best? Greek Wines Souvaki Imported Beers Greek Olives Sandwiches Half-pound Hamburgers Pool Foosball Backgammon Northwest Futon Co. Traditional Japanese Cotton Mattresses 3159 S.G. Belmont Open for Lunch at 11:00 am Happy Hour 4 pm to 7 pm _ 1650 W. Burnside 222-1507 ll ll ll l 26 Logo by Barry Curtis
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