Happy Funland!

Buy the ticket, take the ride

Have you ever questioned the accuracy of your childhood memories?  Were the images of youth warped by your adolescent imagination?  Did it really snow that much as a kid and were the snow forts you built as massive as you recall?  Was the Big Tree in the middle of the cornfield across the road as enormous as you thought at the time?  Was that BMX bike that you got for Christmas back in the early 80’s really that awesome? Were the jumps you made for it as huge and scary as you remember them to be?

Well, after our recent trip back into LSB’s childhood, we discovered that, yes, the waves crashing on Rehoboth Beach were actually pretty menacing looking. It wasn’t just the warped perspective of a much smaller, 1980s version of LSB. Okay, so we’re not talking tidal waves or anything, but even to an adult LSB, they were kind of scary.

Nostalgic blur

She has other memories of the place, too—many of them documented in photographs. Such as LSB on the boardwalk with a giant lollypop cotton candy (a personal favorite of mine) or LSB in a tiny boat at Funland.

Yay! Bumper Cars!

Amazingly enough, Funland is pretty much exactly as she remembered it from when she was a kid and her family would visit in the summer.  Apparently, Funland doesn’t change—and that’s a very good thing, because Funland is pretty great.

Funland may be responsible for happy childhood

memories, but it is not responsible for soiled clothing

The place is like how I imagine old Coney Island was, before it became old Coney Island and fell into disrepair. This place oozes nostalgia, even for someone like me who had never even been there before. Old timey ticket booths, classic carnival games, and precious amusement park rides like the tea cups, carousel, and the aforementioned tiny boats. There is even a haunted house that LSB remembered as being really scary (unfortunately, we never had the chance to test the validity of this memory, as the line to get in was too long). Perhaps the most incredible thing of all was that all of the rides, games, and amusements were not only fully-functional—they were shiny and clean!

Nostalgic prices, too.

So, in the end, Funland triumphed over Progress and I defeated LSB's family in the old-fashioned horse-racing game, heroically and romantically winning her a stuffed, gray horse in the process.  All is well with the world.