No one can forget the carousel! I can remember riding it and being too small to reach the rings. My brother would ride on the horse in front of me and I would root for him to make it in the clown’s mouth, but was always disappointed every time I went around and stretched to my limit and still could not reach that steel ring!
Then one day, around age 6, my mom was standing next to my horse and holding my leg, and I stretched that leather belt just as far as it would go. I reached and finally, finally, I grabbed that ring. I felt the cold steel in my hand and relished in it until I realized I had just a few seconds to pelt it into the that clown’s small mouth. I chucked it and it got caught on my finger and shot straight to the ground. 6 years of waiting, and I missed the mark. But I got to feel it. That was the first one that I had touched that I had not found on the ground. After a few more rides, I was at least hitting near it. Being able to reach that metal arm was a rite of passage for me and meant that the Carousel now was so much more than picking a pretty horse or going up and down. I no longer had to sit back and watch.
The feeling you get when you go around at the end and you feel it slowing down and knowing you might not get another one, and then just as you reach it, you hear that familiar sound and another one pops out. Victory! This is my favorite memory I have of the Boardwalk and being able to share that with my kids when we go back there, is priceless.
