My journaling on this reads: "As a kid, I spent a lot of time at Jantzen Beach Center. The Kopper Kitchen Restaurant there was a safe place for my parents to meet, exchange information that needed to be shared, and trade off who had me, since they shared physical custody of me.
A favorite treat was to be able to ride the merry-go-round while they talked. The ticket shown here was one that my grandpa carried around in his wallet for years, and it's from the early 1980’s. The news article is about the man who ran the merry-go-round during that time. He would always wear a striped outfit and a wide-brimmed hat, and disappear for a while into the roundhouse during each ride, coming out just at the end of the ride. He would walk the opposite way than the ride was going, so it was like a game of hide-and-seek!
My first job for an outside employer was as an operator for the ride. I got the job in August 1996, and worked there until just after Halloween. It was a blast!
The merry-go-round closed in April 2012, and was then dismantled and stored. I was lucky enough to be able to ride that last day, and filmed the last ride as I rode. A Facebook group was started to try to preserve the merry-go-round, since it has been in Portland since the 1920’s, when it was brought to Hayden Island for the Jantzen Beach Amusement Park & Public Swimming Pools.
After years of being in limbo, the ride is being restored and will have a new home somewhere in the Portland area. There are a few locations that have been proposed, but no decisions on the location have been finalized."
I used the Welcome Wagon template from Dagi's Temp-Tations, papers from the "Lucky Me" kit from Blue Heart Scraps, a paper from the "The Little Things" kit from JoCee Designs, and a paper from the "Wanderlust" freebie from Miss Fish.
