When I was a kid I didn’t get to go to Disneyland, 6 Flags, Steampunk City or any other major theme park. It wasn’t that I lived badly or had a terrible life; I was raised by a single lady who worked as a waitress. Money was tight, but we always had enough to eat and a safe place to live.
However, I got to spend my summers in Memphis Tennessee with my grandparents. One summer in the mid-70′s, we got to go to Silver Dollar City (SDC), in Branson Missouri.
Now SDC wasn’t quite the same as Disneyland, I could tell that right away. There were no characters that I recognized, and everything was “Old Westy.” But, it was vacation, and I was happy to be there.
I don’t really remember too much besides some sort of roller coaster that went upside down, and some old cabins that were all wonky inside; water seemed to flow uphill, and there were little windows that you could look through but see little more than dusty dirt.
Now, reading about SDC on Wikipedia, it turns out that this place predated Disneyland by quite a bit. (Started in 1894!) I had no idea that it was so successful and so popular.
Maybe my family loved me, after all.
I did drink a lot of Shasta that year.
- Daniel
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I grew up just a couple miles from an outfit called Jungle Habitat, one of those “drive-thru safari” deals.
Went there a few times but the charm wears off quickly when all you can do is sit in the car and watch animals sleep.
They had lots of problems with injuries and the place just gong stale and eventually closed down.
It was kinda sad but most folks blamed Great Adventure (there is no Six Flags in NJ!) for it’s demise.
This article is fairly accurate, except they omitted the fact that they just knocked down the cages when it closed and turned all the animals loose in the woods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_Habitat
There’s something about the 3rd tier theme parks that are really cool to me.
I need to talk about the Flintstones place I went to in North Dakota sometime.
3rd tier theme parks are pretty cool, I remember going to the “Land of Make Believe” growing up and I remember mainly getting my picture taken with a lot of copyright infringing statues.
I read and studied all about Disney World growing up because every year this relative or that said they would take me, and then some sort of hardship would hit and we didn’t get to go, so instead I’d read a book about it or watch a video on it, so now as an adult I’m addicted to the place
Now what I really want to know is, who rules battletown?
Now what I really want to know is, who rules battletown?
(Apologies for the false icon. I accidentally deleted this comment, and had to re-add it manually. (I’m just dragging a little this morning.)
I think if you read the next comic, you’ll have a much better idea.