Memories of Playland

 

When I was a kid there was an amusement park in San Francisco, right down by the beach. It was called Playland.

I remember it as huge and magical and fascinating. I'm sure if it was still there (it was torn down in 1972) it would seem smaller and cheesier. The magic would just be papier-mâché. The grease in the air would probably make me sick. But oh, it was fun to go there as a kid.

I remember a scary monster ride through the dark. A kid in my school told me solemnly that it was called The Dummies Moving. Somehow that name sounded scarier and more horrible than what it was really called. (I think it was called “Limbo.”) It seemed huge inside. You rode through the pitch dark in a little car. There was a smell of oil and metal. Suddenly a light in front of you would flash on -- there was a monster!  A roar echoed, then the lights flashed off again. Just when I had all the monsters memorized and wasn’t scared by them any more, they added a new one: lights flashed on, there was a flat picture of a monster with arms raised – suddenly, with a grinding of machinery, the arms came down, reaching for you!

I remember a roller coaster called the Mad Mouse, though I can’t find mention of it in the Wikipedia entry on Playland. They do mention the “Alpine Racer” which is described as a “wild mouse” ride. The Roller Coaster Database, at http://www.rcdb.com/g.htm?id=95, defines a Wild Mouse rollercoaster as one “using single-car trains on a track with very tight turns. The cars' wheels are positioned closer to the rear of the car than a traditional coaster. The front of the car travels past the turn before changing directions, giving the sensation that the car will fall off the track.” That must have been the one that we called the Mad Mouse. I was always either too little or too afraid to try it out.

I remember the Kooky Kube, which I only went in once. It wasn't really a ride, it was a house you walked through with a guide and each room was distorted and weird. In one room you sat down on a board on rollers and seemed to roll uphill.

And I remember the Fun House. I didn’t know then what a historic treasure that Fun House was. All I knew was that I hated the laughing lady doll in the window. Great big mouth, bulging cheeks, fat hands, and sounding like she was choking with crazy laughter that haunted me. (She was called “Laughing Sal” and you can watch a video of her at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxV_wjpUeGY.)

To get in to the Fun House, you went through the mirror maze. After a few times, I memorized the route and could get through quickly while my little brother was still lost. The trick was this: if you walked directly towards the lights and noise Fun House interior, you’d bump into mirrors and glass walls. You had to take a passage away from your goal. Then you’d go around a wall of mirrors and find yourself walking out of the maze in just seconds. (That mirror maze entered my dreams a few months ago: a couple of the mirrors slid aside and formed a doorway to another world.)

Inside the Fun House, they had holes in the floor which blasted air up at you. I later learned they were for blowing up ladies skirts. Me, I hated those blasts of air, they made my heart jump. But I figured out that they were controlled by a guy at an elevated bank of levers. If I wanted until he wasn’t looking, I could cross the holes in safety.  I remember one time he saw me hesitating at a line of those holes, and he motioned me forward.  And blasted me as I came.

I liked best the tilting walkways because there were no holes in the floor there. You walked this pathway and the walkway moved up and down under you. There was also a turning tube you could walk through but I never tried: I would have been flipped sideways.

And then the giant slides, three stories tall, made of waxed wood. One slide went straight down, the other had a hump halfway down which made me feel I was going to fly off. I always took the straight one. You climbed a stairway up and up and up to a cramped little room at the top of the slides and they gave you a piece of canvas to sit on. You sat at the top of that huge fall and looked down and thought, am I really going to slide down that? The teenager handing out the canvas nagged you: “Go or get off and or give somebody else a chance.” And so you pushed off, feeling like needles were going through your crotch. Your behind heated up even through the canvas as you plunged down. And then you coasted to a stop, out of breath, triumphant.

They had these great old arcade games, some of which are now at the MuséeMécanique at Fisherman's Wharf.   My favorite was the baseball game. You stood behind home plate of a miniature ball field with metal players at the bases and short stop. Put in a nickel and a steel ball came up from a hole at the pitcher’s mound. It rolled toward a metal bat, which you pressed a button to swing. Swing at the wrong time and the ball rolled right past into another hole. Connect with the ball and it usually was snagged by a slot in front of a player. But if you were really good, you could roll it into the slot which said “Home run.”

Greasy fried food, kitchen-sponge-sized bars of pink popcorn, the Fun House, the scary monsters in the dark. The smell of the ocean nearby. Playland is one of those places like the old Nut Tree: a part of my childhood gone forever.

Here’s a few links if you want to read more about Playland:

• Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playland_(San_Francisco)
• A few pictures and different memories than mine (his detailed narration of the monster ride brought back memories: yes, that's how it was): http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/pacific/pacific.htm
• Musée Mécanique: a museum at Fisherman’s Wharf which has some of the old Funhouse arcade games: http://www.museemecaniquesf.com/
• Playland-not-at-the-beach: the museum in El Cerrito which got me thinking about Playland in the first place. They have some of the old Playland games and memorabilia, and lots of fun family stuff. http://playland-not-at-the-beach.org

The Aaahhh Moment: Eat Consciously to Lose Weight and Keep it Off

Eating was over in a cramming rush. Thirty seconds, a couple of minutes for a big plate. It was good, then it was gone.  And to add insult to injury, I felt bloated.

And my weight was slowly creeping back up, ounce by ounce, pound by pound.

I had reached my target weight and was trying to maintain it. I exercised, I ate moderately amounts of fat and sugar, I ate greens and whole grains. I was doing all the right things.

I didn’t know what else to do. My wife told me my metabolism was slowing down even more as I aged.

But there’s an exact moment to stop eating so you feel just perfect. I call it the Aaahhh Moment.

When does it come? Well, you know that feeling when you’re eating and loving it and you get to a peak of perfection and your whole being is saying “This is so good!!! The last thing in the world I could possibly do right now is stop eating.”

Er, that’s the moment I’m talking about.

It’s the moment when your spirit says, “Aaahhh.” and it’s usually accompanied by a desperate urge to keep the experience going.

But the very next bite doesn’t taste quite so good. And the bite after that is accompanied by the beginning of a bloaty tummy. You may finish every bite but you already feel blah.

To stop at the Ah Moment, you have to fight the urge to keep eating. But it’s worth the work to rewire that urge. Because a few minutes later, you start to feel peaceful and calm inside. You begin to feel a delightful sense of emptiness. At least, that’s how it is for me.

And emptiness isn’t quite the right word because that implies lack. It’s more a sense of having space inside, space for creativity, for new things. And that feeling often lasts for hours.

How do you make this work?

Start with Slow Patience. At first, I couldn’t tell whether or not I’d reached the Ah Moment. I’d stop eating, check how I felt, take another tentative bite, stop again. Like a dog trying to find where it buried a bone. I’d try stopping and after a half hour, I’d feel hungry again. But eventually I got to where I enjoyed each bite and could tell when the taste was building to the peak.

Don’t Tough it Out. Eating consciously is not about being hungry and miserable. If you’re hungry after a half hour, eat something else, but eat just enough and then stop again.

Drink Water. Lots of time I’d feel hungry and then after a nice big drink of water, I’d feel perfect. Sometimes you’re not hungry, you’re thirsty.

Classic Diet Advice: Take Smaller Portions. See, one of my demons is “finish what’s on your plate.” Even if I know I can put leftovers in the fridge, it’s hard to leave just a few mouthfuls. And if I know that the food will be wasted, like cereal with milk that’ll just sog, I spoon it on in, even if I’m full. But you need to eat until you feel perfectly satisfied, not until the food is gone. That’s easier if you take a smaller portion.

Eat Slowly and do Nothing Else No reading, or internet surfing or typing in a blog while eating (like I did just now, sigh). The more consciously you eat, the easier it is to enjoy every bite and stop at the Ah Moment.

At Least Notice the State of the Stomach. Even if you can’t tell ahead of time when you’re approaching the Ah Moment, you can stop at the first bite where you start to feel Ughh in you belly. No matter how good the food is tasting.

It took work to make this a habit. But now I feel good most of the time. And my weight has steadily dropped, right back to where I want it to be.

Try eating consciously. It can’t possibly hurt.

What's in that Mysterious Canyon?

When I was a kid, I used to get scared a lot. Once, my father tried to make me feel less scared by telling me a little story – but it backfired.

He told me, “Mikie, once I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought I saw a man standing by the bathroom door. I was scared for a minute, but then I realized it was only my clothes piled a certain way on a chair and I wasn’t scared anymore. So you don’t need to be scared of things in the night either.”

The trouble was, I then had a new fear: waking up and thinking I saw a strange man in the room. I’d never thought of that before. I couldn’t take in the fact that Daddy had been trying to reassure me. All I could think of were those few seconds of terror when I’d think I saw a strange man in the room.

It’s amazing the way our minds work when we’re kids.

A while ago, I made up a new story for kids at the day care centers where I’m the weekly storyteller. I didn’t think it was scary at all. Willy the Wolf doesn’t want to grow up and go to kindergarten, so he goes to Babyland, the place where you turn into a baby and never grow up. (And in the end, of course, he realizes he does want to grow up, and gets out after many adventures).

The first time I told it, I made it a mystery where Willy was going. There was a mysterious canyon and nobody knew what was down there, just that if you went down, you’d never get out and you’d never grow up. I expected the kids to enjoy the mystery of what was down there, to be intrigued by the clues I planted (such as: the ground is covered with mattresses, there are pink and blue plastic rattling things growing from the trees, etc.).

But they were terrified of the unknown horror down there. When Willy made the choice to go there, they were practically screaming at him not to. Even when they found out it was just babies, some were still scared.

Now I love telling scary stories, although for little kids I make it not too scary and give it a funny ending. But I hadn’t intended that story to be scary at all.

Twice I told the story this way and was surprise by the depth of the fear the kids felt. So for the next group that I told it to, I changed it in a way that empowered the kids.

Instead of making a mystery out of what was in the canyon, I announced that I was going to tell the story of Babyland. The kids laughed.

In my revised version, Willy knows it’s Babyland he wants to go to, the only mystery is where it is. When I got to the part where Willy found the mysterious canyon and saw the mattresses on the ground and the rattles on the trees, the kids started saying, “I’ll bet that’s Babyland!” They even guessed the reason Willy sees no babies at 2:00 PM: they’re all taking their naps.

Same story, same action. But I let them in on the secret. I gave them more power. It made all the difference.

I'm Always Thinking of Things

Hello.  This is my free-form creative space.  I'm always writing articles in my head as I swim, hike, drive.  Thinking of how I'd explain things, thinking of ideas.  Here I'll put them out for the world.

I don't expect anyone to read these for a while.  That's fine.  I got paralyzed when I tried to blog on a specific topic.  I want to feel free to write anything here.  If you've stumbled across these writings, enjoy!  My brain is an interesting place for me at least.  I'll try to make it interesting for you.