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Okay, I can’t take a break from talking about Whalom Park without pointing out that my aunt is the best aunt on the planet. I’m sorry that you all will be crying yourselves to sleep tonight, but that’s just the way the buggy bounces.

Do you know WHY my aunt is the greatest aunt on the planet? Because she reads my blog. And sometimes she comments, although not recently. And then she comes over to my house in the middle of the day to leave me a present. A PRESENT! I LOVE PRESENTS!

And do you know what she gave me? Here is what the note said:
“Jody, I got these in an auction. Thought you should have them.”

Inside the bag where goodies from Whalom Park. Two ice cream sundae dishes, a coffee mug celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Flying Comet (1940-2000), a skee-ball coupon and a magnet. I mean, holy cow, can you even think of a more thoughtful gift on the PLANET? I cannot. She rocks. So this year we declare Tuesday October 31st “The Aunt Day”. It helps that it’s her birthday, of course. So I want you to all make sure you look extra special next Tuesday when we wish her a happy birthday.

Oh, so what was I going to say? Oh, ya, a complaint. Have any of you played the Spyro video games? I think they are fantastic, he’s too cute, the games are family friendly, blah blah blah. So Spyro hangs out with a firefly named Sparx. In all the other games Sparx speaks with the dragonfly equivalent of the Charlie Brown Adults. Bzzz bzzzz bzzzzz bzzzzz. Cute.

There’s a new Spyro game, and Sparx speaks. And his voice is done by….David Spade. I can’t even begin to tell you how awful this decision was.

I know my current obsession will wear off eventually, but right now I am spending a LOT of time looking at web sites that somehow have reference to “Whalom Park.” I think this is one of the stages of mourning, isn’t it? (The other stage is wondering why my site isn’t anywhere near the top 5 results pages if you google for Whalom Park. I’m insulted. No, not really.)

I think he’s concerned about me. He probably should be, but what can you do? I may not have mentioned that Junior and I went to the Whalom driving range to hit a bucket of balls on Columbus Day. As always, we drove by the park and I took a mental inventory of how things looked. It appeared to me that there may have been some activity, but nothing specific. Things looked as they had for most of the past year. As we rounded the corner past the roller rink, I looked up at the boarded windows, and told him (again?) that was where I learned to roller skate with my Brownie troop. I can still picture the inside as it was the last time I saw it, probably in high school.

Imagine my shock when I heard that the next day it was torn down. Not weeks later, the next day. I hope my brain had film loaded in it, because that’s the last mental picture I get to take. We drove past the building again a few days later and it was 7/8 down. So much for that.

No, I haven’t driven by the park since they took down the Roller Coaster. I want to, but I don’t want to. You know?

Here are pictures from August 2000, our last trip to the park. Junior (blue shirt) and his cousin hit the kiddie rides. Had I only known it was the last-last trip, I would have taken MANY more pictures.

A news story out of Attleboro quoted a mom with the same last name as me. I proceeded to get email from friends all over the planet who saw the article on CNN and wanted to know if I was related to that mom. http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2006/10/18/features/feature37.txt

The story, about an Attleboro elementary school banning tag at recess, is another one of those “fear of being sued” things. I made sure to tell all my friends I am pro-playground.

Yesterday I got a call from the person in charge of Junior’s aftercare program telling me that he’d gotten a gash on his head while…wait for it….playing tag.

The timing and irony of the whole thing could not be creepier. And no, I’m not going to sue. The school is not responsible for making sure my kid looks where he’s going. And he’s fine, no stitches, but I don’t think he’ll try to duck under that particular piece of playground equipment again.

Okay, I cannot be held responsible if you watch this and you choke up, okay? It’s REALLY well done, and I started blubbering when I got to the end of it. I plan to write to the photographer.
http://wt.us.publicus.com/static/slideshow/WhalomPark/index.html

(I’m in the middle of re-uploading my Whalom Park photo album – the one I took 5 years after the park closed and most of the rides were auctioned off. https://www.bigdumptruck.com/images/Whalom%20Park%20May%202005/)

[Updated 10/20] Also, if you’re looking for pictures of the park, Google “Whalom Park” in their images category. Wow, there is some seriously cool stuff out there. I know I saw I was going to make a Whalom Park page here a while ago, but now I really want to do it, even if it’s just for me. Also, I am now more determined than ever to find the old pictures (slides?) of me as a toddler on the rides in kiddieland. Is it a bad sign that I have the old Whalom Park (for a whale of a time) radio jingle in my head?

I’m in mourning. I’ve talked about this before, but to heck with it, I’m talking about it again.

Whalom Park is gone. Well, it was technically gone when they auctioned off all the rides, but now it’s gone because they’re flattening the place. I’m one of those stupid blind believers who could drive past the crumbling ruins the past few years and not see the rot and rubble and overgrowth. I could see the train tracks and the Scrambler and hear the sounds of balloons popping from the water game over by the Flying Comet Roller Coaster. I can remember the daily bet on which car of the Octopus would be thrown up in first while I was working cashier at the front of the park. I remember running through the park in the pouring rain because they decided not to open after we were all at work. I remember my parents cramming as many neighborhood kids as possible into our car to drive us all for the Wednesday night two-for-one pricing. I remember actually falling in love for the first time with a guy who didn’t love me back, but still making me feel special because he treated me like a princess in front of all the other girls who had mad crushes on him. (I’m talking about you, Mr. Tilt-a-Whirl.) I remember the fun house when it was full of items that you couldn’t have in a public place for fear of a million lawsuits – the spinning barrel that the kids would do cartwheels in, and the big disk on the floor where you wanted to sit in the middle because then you might be the last to be spun off by the centrifigal force. I remember the horror when we all heard that there had been a fire and the haunted house was gone forever. I remember how every Easter Sunday I would BEG my parents to take us to Whalom for the Easter Egg Hunt, even though we never went. I remember being REALLY little, maybe 4, and riding on the kiddie roller coaster they used to have, and a fence post had fallen across the track but the kid running the ride couldn’t hear us yelling and we were damned lucky the train cars didn’t come off the track. I remember taking Junior as a tiny guy, him loving every ride he went on, and me being thrilled that I was bringing my own child to one of my favorite places.

I remember being grateful beyond words when Mark Chester invited me to meet him at the closed park for one last walk around and photo session. I will TREASURE those photos forever. [Note: I just went to look for these and saw that they are not on the server. I will make sure to re-upload them. I have no idea why they aren’t available.]

Here’s a note from a long ago Dump:

“I didn’t make it to Whalom Park again this year. I dread the time
when Junior becomes aware of it because we’ll have to find another route to Walmart. Not that I spend a lot of time at Walmart, but I won’t want to stop to ride the Merry-Go-Round every time I head off to buy lightbulbs.”

I take it back!!!