Almost every summer my family made the trip from San Jose for a mini-vacation in Santa Cruz. Often we would stay at the Casa del Rey or one of the other Beach Street area motels. I enjoyed all the rides but was rather timid of the coasters until finally accepting a dare to ride the Giant Dipper in my teen years. I remember the Fun House, trying to hit the clown’s mouth on the Carousel, the gas powered Autorama etc., but the thing I lived to do every year between 5 and 10 years old was to go into a booth in the arcades and make a RECORD! I still have those discs. I thought I was some sort of star as I sang my heart out into the microphone. On one you can hear me gasping for breath as my cousin held me up as there was no stool and I was still too short to reach the microphone.
The earliest recording is one of the only recordings of my mom and dad as they encouraged me to talk and sing. I wonder what ever happened to those old telephone booth sized machines?
