comments

1. Brandon Hobson on July 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

   I grew up near route 66 just west of OKC. I still live here. Lucky me.

2. Mary Jeys on July 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

   Have you seen this whale? I think he is the happiest amusement whale I have ever seen.

3. Brandon Hobson on July 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

   Mary,
   I’ve never seen that whale. I actually haven’t even heard of Catoosa. Is that eastern or western Oklahoma? We have lots of places to eat with 50′s settings, though. There was one drive-in type place that I used to like to go, until someone smashed my windshield, but I didn’t mind. The food was good.

4. Mary Jeys on July 16th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

   I don’t know anything about this site except for my search terms “the whale” fetched this picture in google images. I like these kind of simple html sites. They feel like the land before the web 2.0 explosion. It’s like vintage internet. Vintage internet plus vintage highways.

5. Sheila Ryan on July 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   That amusement whale is not at all like Barry Stone’s Moby Dick.

6. Cornell Campbell on July 17th, 2008 at 1:42 am

   Mary -

   Catoosa is about 10 miles northeast of Tulsa, OK. My sister actually lives on a farm about a mile from the Blue Whale It was nice to see someone other than a few random Oklahomans take notice of the “happiest amusement whale”. Have a good one.

7. Cooper Renner on July 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am

   Lordy! When I was a kid, there was an “amusement park” in the Dallas/Ft Worth area (maybe Irving?) called Storybook Land, if I remember correctly. Little scenes/structures like the three little pigs, etc.

8. Sheila Ryan on July 17th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   Oh, yes. I’ve not thought of Storybook Land in . . . a while. And I think I’ve conflated it with a similar operation in New England (possibly Maine) in which the Little Red Riding Hood tableau was a tableau vivant — featuring a live wolf.

   I’m pretty sure that I’m not making this up, although ‘attractions’ confused me when I was very very little. In Florida we visited an alligator farm wherein a gator afflicted with a polio-like condition was displayed along with a contribution box soliciting donations for the Crippled Children’s Fund or some such charity. I thought that we were visiting a sort of Warm Springs-style sanitarium for crippled alligators.

9. Sheila Ryan on July 17th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

   Cooper, might The Secret History of O__ C_____ be expanded to include Storybook Land? You think?

Leave a Reply