Life is a Carousel

Not all of the time, but there used to be a time when outside of every grocery store and department store there was a machine waiting quietly to seduce children to climb on their backs. The child would jump on, then whine and beg for a dime. Later, it was a quarter to get the machine to rock, to buck, and sometimes to play music or to roar. The manufacturers offered an entire menagerie of animals from horses to hippos, pigs, and pachyderms. Some machines were rockets, stagecoaches, or pony carts. Occasionally, the enticement was a carousel with two horses or some other type of animal that called to the child. I think this was the introduction for many children to ride the much larger version of the merry-go-rounds at the amusement park.

The amusement park’s carousel played loud, whimsical music that could be heard for several yards around the ride. The alluring sounds of calliope notes called youngsters and oldsters to step up onto the wide platform. Eventually, they would find an empty saddle on a lion, zebra, or painted horse. If the child was fortunate enough, he or she could claim a noble steed that pranced in an up-and-down motion driven by a brass crank-shaft above.

Many smaller children were held into the saddle by their parents standing at their side. Child and parent would laugh and enjoy the lighthearted music. The wide twirling motion of the platform and the smell of food from vendors around the ride added to the festive feeling. Sometimes, the less adventurous folk or the elderly were enticed to join, but because they couldn’t or didn’t want to climb on the back of an animal, they chose a seat to rest their feet in the gaily festooned bandwagons interspaced on the merry-go-round platform.

Waiting for the carousel to stop was almost as magical. The music tempo would change as the whirling creatures picked up speed or slowed before the waiting crowd’s eyes. Those people would be touched by a mystical breeze stirred to life by the herd of spinning creatures making the anticipation for their turn seem to last forever.

Then there was the chaos of people exiting the ride and those who were climbing on board clashing like opposing ocean tides. Eventually, the turmoil would cease and the attendant rings the bell with several loud clangs. The lumbering behemoth begins another circuit around the motor-driven gears hidden behind elaborately decorated and gilded panels and the calliope begins to chirp a merry tune. The ride through fantasyland begins.