Whalom Park

Way back, a zillion years ago—when I was a mere eight years old, we lived in Townsend, Massachusetts. Townsend is about 50 miles northwest of Boston and, more or less, 40 miles north of Worcester (which is, by the by, pronounced Woostah {double o as in look} or Wistah {i as in list} Also, anywhere west of Worcester is considered Midwest...you're welcome). Townsend sits on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border and is an absolutely gorgeous area. Additionally, it’s the locale of my bestest, most consistently happy childhood memories.

Just one town south of Townsend is Lunenburg which used to be the home of Whalom Park—a small, by today’s mega-park standards, funfair. It shut in 2000.

Whalom Park was built by the Fitchburg and Leominster Street Railway (in 1893) as a trolley park. In the early 19th century, trolley parks became popular along or at the ends of streetcar lines in many larger cities. The idea behind the trolley parks was to get people to use the street car services on the weekends. To that end, they were quite successful. Undoubtedly, the most famous of these trolley parks is Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. (source)

The trolley line that Whalom was at the end of was out of Fitchburg. My father taught at the college there and this was the town in which my younger sister Celeste was born. Happy times.

Though we only lived in Townsend for one skinny year, Daddy took us to Whalom at least a few times. I absolutely loved the place. The Tilt-a-Whirl was my favorite ride, followed closely by the ferris wheel and carousel. The roller coaster, while small, was too scary and I couldn’t understand the appeal of the bumper cars. What was the point of going mobile if you were just going to BLAM into other cars?  That's like going up in a perfectly good airplane just to jump out of it. I don't, and will never, get it.

By the by, The Cars filmed their 1982 video for Touch and Go there. Yes, the vid is cheesy as all hell but…hey…it was the early ‘80s. Honestly now, what, I ask you WHAT could you reasonably expect?

Why did Whalom Park come to mine this morning? Beats the fuck outta me. My bean is a random collection of memories—good, divine, bad, horrendous and, of course, embarrassing.