The Kiddie Park

But it's not all deprivation and destitution in Oklahoma, like that OKC house. Why, right here in the old home town, we have an actual amusement park with the famous "FireBall" roller coaster. If you can handle the thrills and chills of a major roller-coaster ride, here's POV video from start to finish. (0:53, coaster2coaster, on YouTube)

Wellll, okay, it's called the "Kiddie Park," and the 'coaster is called "Little Fire Ball" - I don't know if there's a Big Fire Ball. This donation-supported wonderland has not been allowed to age. The merry-go-round has recently been rehabbed. Vandals have molested the rides, but the community undoes their damage every time. Not even Nature's forces: there is a post in the park, with a mark at (asking Milady) 8 to 12 feet above the ground, showing where the waters rose to in the big flood of Oct '86. (That's when we were watching the news in Chicago and saw areal shots showing how the place had become three islands, and police were getting here to there by boat. Funny place, the dust bowl.) They hosed the park down, oiled and painted, and fired back up, I think by Summer '87.

The Kiddie Park has been maintained, practically unchanged, since my grandfather took me there as a youngster, and is dear to the hearts of generations of folks who grew up here. And the parents who bought them popcorn and cotton candy and put them to bed at night all tuckered out. From that roller coaster ride.