Down at Palisades Park

My dad and mom divorced when I was five years old. My mom and I moved to California and my dad stayed behind in New Jersey. Every summer starting when I was seven, my mom would put me on a plane to spend the summers with my bachelor dad at work.

My dad and his brother owned a small used auto dealership where he would fix up used cars to sell. My dad would put me to work washing windows, filling the tires with air or vacuuming the interiors. 

One in a while, I could talk my dad into taking me to Palisades Amusement Park, a little amusement park set on a tiny island off of Fort Lee. Visitors took a short ferry ride across the Hudson River to the old-fashioned, carnival style park with what seemed like millions of bright colored lights.

My dad would indulge my need to go on every ride such as the Scrambler, the Cyclone and the Hammerhead. He would buy me cotton candy, Italian ice, giant Pixie Stix or maybe a fresh baked pretzel. We always had such a good time there because my dad really loved the place! He particularly enjoyed playing the skill games. He was especially good at the baseball throw. One of my favorite memories of Palisades Park was my dad blabbing with the booth attendant, handing him a dollar for three baseballs then landing all three in the milk jug. Dad asked me which prize I wanted and I said the giant troll. I'd never seen a giant troll like that before. It had long straggly hair, amber eyes and wore a caveman costume. I named him “Iggy”. I've saved that giant troll for all these years and Iggy holds a prized spot on my troll shelf.

Happy Birthday Barbie!

A friend took me to a party at the soon to be my good friend, Kari’s house for a “Barbie Birthday Party” many years ago.  Kari’s house was incredible! She had tons of various toys and dolls on display, glittery pink floors and the entire house were all decorated in Barbie art. Tacky pink Barbie banners stretched across the ceiling, pink lights and gold spray painted dolls hung on the branches of the ficus tree that grew from outside through the crack in the living room window! 

So many colorful people in wild costumes and hats from every decade of the Barbie doll! Spiked pink punch with fruit slices, bowls of pink gumdrops and plates of pink cookies with sprinkles. Kari was dressed as the Twiggy doll in a human-sized version of the Mattel Twiggy doll’s original outfit. She had various performance artists doing erotic performances featuring Barbie as their perverse theme. Plus, the best part was that Kari had set up assorted Barbie craft projects to do in every room. In one room there was piles of doll clothes, shoes, heads, bodies, arms, scraps of fabric, X-acto knives, hot glue, colored foil, glitter, paint, scissors and markers on a circular table so guest could create their own expression featuring the iconic doll. I sat down beside a guy named Bichon who looked like a kooky beatnik. We started to chat, hit it off and became collaborators on a Barbie project. I stripped off the paint from a doll’s face with acetone. I taped off her head, exposing her hair then spray-painted her hair black. Bichon started to make a wedding dress from a few paper doilies.  When the paint on the hair dried, I pulled the tape off and repainted the make-up on her face. I found a tiny bridal bouquet, added a black veil, a ribbon and colored the flowers to look weathered.  Bichon had finished the elaborate wedding dress and it was spectacular! The dress had a long train in the back, scraps of old lace with plastic spiders on the peplum, bows and puffed sleeves with tiny Tic Tac breath mints glued to them. Kari gave prizes for the favorite art creation so after the voting by the crowd; Bichon and I won the contest!

 

The Bride of Frankenstein Barbie was our lovely creation that night.

Bichon and I became great friends after that. Hope you making some fantastic Barbie art in heaven, Bichon.