paw prints and the PPAA from our high school adventures. 

   I know I do!  They were such a delight in my life!

I thought this was a cute addition to those symbols of our more adventurous selves.  I laughed with delight when I saw this one.  It reminded me of  Freddy's paws.

It is fun knowing people who enjoy something innocent such as the reading of Sherlock Holmes stories.  Keeps my interest in life going when the mundane chores and vicissitudes of  life would stultify.  I am joining Watson's Tin Box here in Ellicott City to discuss  with like minded people the S. Holmes Canon. Harmless fun.

   I think it's wonderful that you were able to locate such a group of people with similar interests.  What joy that brings!

It is best to keep our spirits lively as we age, is it not!  Carol, you are, as you say, always a kid at heart.  Some part of me is too!
 

Frances

    That's a very strange law, but I'm glad you were able to beat your deadline.  I really liked watching the pictures of work in progress.  MAD MAX is almost as gorgeous as you are.

 

   I've always found that there's something both exhilarating and bittersweet about finishing a project that large and time consuming.  The work itself has become such a part of your life, that you're left with almost an emptiness.  I'm glad you'll be able to start again - but that's going to be hard to top!

 

   Thanks for the tour, Chandler Darlin'! 
 

  

   Thanks again, Gorgeous!

Oh, Carol. 

I am just buzzing!  I've known Wally for many years and he is a handsome, charming man.  If he didn't exist, you'd have to invent him!  Well, all that charm flowed through the phone lines and I have been delightfully entertained for the last hour!  Wally said he was the luckiest person alive.  His dad bought a cottage in Buckroe the year Wally was born.  So he got to spend every summer of his life at Buckroe Beach.  And when he came back from the Army in WW2, his dad had bought the park.  He and his brothers finished up at VaTech and came home to re-build and run the park.  And Wally says he spent the next 46 years of his life at Buckroe.  Ooooh, the stories you're gonna love.  You may want to break this into parts for publication.

 

Wally's dad owned a confectionary store called the Delmont Cigar Store on the corner of 26th and Washington, across the street from City Hall.  It was understood that everyone who was anyone came in there.  In 1939, Roosevelt got the congress to pass a law that said all utility companies had to divest themselves of any holdings they had that were not directly related to their utility.  And the Virginia Electric Power (VEP) had to divest itself of a little amusement park.  It was bought by Coles Taylor (the mayor of NN), Charlie Minnengerode (real estate) and others.  They leased the food and beverage area to Coca Cola Brown to run.  Well, Mr,. Minnengerode and the others didn't really want to run an amusement park.  But Basil Peter Stieffen did.  So he bought it.  However, the Park came with encumbrances.  There was a will that directed all proceeds from rides (the Air Plane, the Roller Coaster [circa 1922] ) had to go to the Catholic Church.  There was a period of time yet to run on this stipulation and some criteria for the condition of the equipment at the end of the term.  So Mr. Stieffen worked it out with the Church's banker, LM Von Shilling, and the rides were retired early.  The original coaster tracks went through the middle of the park on the diagonal path seen on the photo.  So the coaster and original Ferris Wheel (which was also on the right of the coaster track (and out of the photo) were sold to Princess Anne County (Va Beach)!  The original coaster was a Jack Rabbit.

 

The original Merry Go Round (MGR hereinafter) was built in 1910 well.  It was in an 8 sided building at the intersection of Pembroke Avenue and N. 1st Street.  The MGR was taken apart and replaced with the one we all remember.  The later one was eventually restored and is located in downtown Hampton.  The original building had been what they called the 'old Vaudeville House'.  The old MGR was also sold to Va. Beach.  The 8 sided building would be out of the photo frame.

 

The Wagner Hotel is at the left of the photo.  It was owned by the Ghivizanni family.  The entire first floor was a bar!  The upper floors were hotel rooms and suites.  The hotel was damaged in 1954 by Hurricane Hazel and the Ghivizanni family rebuilt a modern hotel with a pool on the site. 

 

The bath house is in the center of the photo.  It was one story in the photo.  It was destroyed by Hazel and rebuilt as a 3 story facility.  Wally told me that during by the mid 1950s, they had reservations for 180 church groups coming from Richmond annually to spend vacations at the park.  The Buckroe Hotel is to the right of the bath house. 

 

Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My?  It seems the Stieffens went to a conference in Chicago and while there, they bought these large fiberglass creatures that were painted in a life-like manner.  The bought a lion, a gorilla, an eagle, a seahorse and a bear.  The man delivering them to the park stopped somewhere this side of Richmond to eat or gas up.  And when he came back to the truck, the gorilla was gone!  But the other animals arrived at the park and were installed in various places. 

 

1950 saw the opening of the new Roller Coaster.  The track that went diagonally across the park was relocated so that it paralleled a part of the original track.  Kiddie Land was relocated to that area of the park.  The monkey pen was closed to make way for Kiddle Land.  I remember the monkey pen; do you?

   I do, I really do!!!  I remember seeing it in 1949 - the summer I turned two!

 

I asked Wally about the building where my late father in law worked for the Pull a String concession was.  Wally said it was out of the photo frame.  He said that Mr. Marashita ran the concession.  Mr. Marashita was interned during the second WW up in northern VA where he worked as a chef.  But as soon as the war was over, he returned to the beach and was the concessionaire again!

   I remember Mr. Marashita and his wife so well, I could probably pick them out of a crowd!  How I loved Pull a String!!!  The adjoining Duck Pond (or whatever it was called) worked on the same basic principle (overturn the "swimming" plastic duck of your choice, and the attendant would tell you the prize you had won), but Pull a String was always my favorite!

   The only other individual I remember at all from the entire park was the man who ran the Bumper Cars.  He was quite short, but I can't recall now whether he was born a little person, or if he suffered from brittle bone syndrome (the correct medical term for which escapes me at the moment).

   I remember that the fellow who ran the Fun House thought it was quite humorous to aim a squirt of concentrated air up the skirts of women as they crossed over that area of the walk.  And what were we doing wearing dresses to an amusement park, you might well ask?  I do not know, but I do remember doing it at least once  (And yes, Jimmy-Jimmy, I do remember which dress it was.  It was a pale pink Dacron which I borrowed from Eleanor as often as she'd allow me.).

 

Some of you may remember that Wally Stieffen was Hampton's delegate in Richmond for several terms.  He said he met so many people there who had worked at the Park as youths or whose families had vacationed there.  He said it was a nice thing to meet these people.  One time, in the mid 1970s, one of his Richmond friends came to visit and brought his little grand daughter.  Wally gave them some tickets for rides in the Park.  As the man and his grand daughter left the Park that evening, they ran into Wally again.  The little girl said, "Mr. Stieffen, thank you for letting me play with your toys."  Wally said that was the best thing anyone had ever said to him.

 

The original Ferris Wheel (yes, Carol, I did remember to ask about it and yes, I did save this for last!) was built in the early 1900s, maybe as late as 1910.  Wally called it "a slow moving thing".  The Stieffens installed the new wheel - an Eli type - in the new location where we remember it being.  The new wheel was installed in 1952 as well as Wally can remember.  They had to finish the installation of the new coaster and get the pad ready for the wheel and that probably took the construction season of 1951. 

 

There may be more that I will remember later but this is from the notes I took as Wally talked to me. 

   WOWZERONI-RINI-ROONI-ROOTIE-TOOT-TOOTIE!!!   

   Thanks so much, Kathy!!!  This might take me some time to add to the various Buckroe pages - including the Arcade - but I'll post it as soon as I can.  Right now, I don't want to deprive anyone of reading this while I'm working on it!

I promised Wally that I'd print off some of the things you have accumulated on the BB page.  But that'll have to wait until my computer once again finds either angelfire or the other server you use.