Anyone else out there from Northborough Mass?
Yup! That's where most everything originated.
Warm summers and cold winters.
...swimming and ice skating type climate - great time!
When we were on summer vacations - my Sister an I spent much of
our youth in the outdoor amusement industry - my Dad's occupation.
That would be the carnival business for those that didn't recognize the long
name...
I worked in games as soon as I could talk in sentences - My Dad
put me in his "Nickel Pitch" and put the microphone in my face.
Hurting the publics ears with my high-pitched, very shrill voice -
chanting - "Pitch-em-in -- win-em-out!" from morning through night.
That was my Mom & Dads way of keeping us from running all over
like wild animals while they worked. I remember I had plenty of fun
times with my Mom & Sister when we worked in crazy-ball games.
On slow days, we would get in silly moods and do stupid stuff -
anything for a laugh type of stuff. Once I remember a young couple
walking by and I said into the microphone to the guy, "Hey - that's
not the same girl you were with yesterday!" - and the couple
looked at each other and the girl started giving him dirty looks and we
could hear her fading voice giving him hell as they continued down
the midway. Used to crack my Mom & Sister up with stuff.
Afterwards I thought how strange it was that his female companion
seemed to take the word of complete strangers - unquestioned.
We hoped he eventually found someone else who at least heard
about the concept of trust... I learned from some interesting
happenings to be a little more careful when Mom & Sis said -
"Do something funny!"!
I graduated - go figure - to rides when I was eighteen. My dad stuffed
a bunch of rides on the Ocean City Pier and needed a mike man on
his then - brand new Musik Express. You know, a Himalaya type ride
that turns, plays up-beat music, flashes lots of lights and has a DJ guy
that keeps asking you if you want to go faster... Yup! I was one of
those happy idiots for a few years. Once - and only once, I asked the
turning public the stupid question - "Do you want to go faster?"
And they all yelled - Ya! - I paused, then replied - "Throw money.".
Expecting nothing from that line at all, shifted up a speed or two and
it wasn't long, but someone had a heck of a pocketful of change and
let me have it. Threw it at me through the control box window while
they were turning a pretty fast clip - man that hurt - but we kept
finding soda change for a good while after that. - Thanks whom
ever you were!
My dad - it seemed - saw something in me that I didn't. Fixing things!
It would be a very busy Saturday night and some ride or something
electrical or mechanical would break - and it couldn't run - meaning it
couldn't be ridden by all those folks that wanted to spend a buck to ride
the broken thing - that meant the broken thing wasn't making any money.
Get the picture? So dad many times came to me and said - "Go fix it!".
And I would say - "But I never saw one of those things before!" - to
which he would re-enforce his position with - "Dickie - go fix it!!!".
...and somehow - I would! Learned lots about a lot of things that way.
Even lasers. Yup! Dad had booked in a laser show one summer and
one very busy Saturday night, it stopped and none of the people that
took care of it were around for whatever reason - and Dad came to me
with the - "Dickie - Go fix it!". That was my first time as a
laser repair man.
Turned out it wasn't getting enough water flow to keep it cool and
a safety shut it down. Eventually, I was running my own laser show.
It was back in the late 70's & early 80's, I had a short, on the heavy side,
gal working for me. Laser shows were still relatively new and an expen-
sive technology - and not all of the general public knew what it was or why
it cost as much as it did to see it. So it was a difficult thing to sell being
hard to describe dancing laser patterns on a screen - until I was
watching this gal explain "a laser show" to some folks inquiring.
She went on to say - while moving her arms all around -
"It goes like this... - and like this..." - moving her hands in another
direction, and then saying - "...only in color!".
I watched the peoples expressions as they processed the information
that she had clearly provided - a strange null look on there faces ---
as they turned to by tickets for the next show... Works
for me!
Did some of those 70mm film shows where you stand in an inflated dome,
half of the inside is screen - making the picture so much larger than
you that evasive camera moves - like a car stopping in front of you very
suddenly - makes you loose your balance. I was a sprocket jockey for a few
years and also talked the front in Cinema 180's. Played up in Canada
several times. One Sunday around noon, a family of people still dressed
in their Sunday best were the only ones in the portable, inflatable theater.
There was a scene in the film where a helicopter is flying you around a
ridge of the Grand Canyon. Only you think that you are in a car since it
is low flying - following a road right on the edge of the rim. They followed
the road for a little while until it comes to the place where the road makes
a sharp turn to the left - and you don't... I happened to look out the project-
ion room window to see this finely dressed family of about six - fall like
dominos onto the dirt floor. Another film that had a water scene with
a catamaran floating, only with the camera bobbing in and out of the water.
Again I happened to look out of the projection booth window and notice our
customers wiping their faces while commenting - "This is really neat!".
I had an urge to investigate, so I left the projection booth and went out the
revolving door to the cool West Palm evening air and continued out back
of the air dome where I found a drunk old man urinating in the blowers that
kept the dome inflated...
That was all a long time ago...
Look here later for more!
What's Dickie do now?
Got me a self made job that I woke up one day and realized I'd started.
Because a friend once told me years ago that...
"if your proud of what you do, you should put your name
on it!"
and another good friend told me that
"a company name should say what it does!"
...and that's how one of north America's longest company names:
was initiated.
...and I do remember who those friends were that told me
those things - so try me.
Here's one of the things
that I make:
