Opening Idora Park
If you’ve never worked in one, you might not realize how much work has to be done to get an amusement park up and running. Idora Park was closed over the winter, and we started early getting things ready and sprucing up for opening day.
In my second year of working there, I got a phone call from George Goodman. George was in charge of the games. He asked if I would come in before the park opened to help set up the games. I said sure. I always wondered what you had to do. As I found out, there is a lot to do.
When I got there he said, “The first thing we're going to do is start painting things.”
Well, we all know what Ohio Winters can be like— especially in the seventies. We all know what they can do to paint on buildings. I started painting the front of all the games. I thought it was fun. My grandfather had taught me how to paint a few years before and had jobs lined up for me in the neighborhood. I was fairly good at painting, and two days later I was done.
I went looking for George Goodman again, and he introduced me to a gentleman who was around 50 years old. George said, “Chuck, this is Naze. He fixes all the games in and out of the arcade.”
I said, “Hello, my name is Chuck.”
He said, “I have heard about you, especially that you don't mind working. I want you to sweep the floors really good and clean all the glass on all the games in the penny arcade by the park office.”
It took all day, but I did get the job done. He told me that night that I did a good job.
“How was it?” he asked me.
“Not bad,” I answered.
“Good. Tomorrow morning we’ll start something different.”
The next day I got there early around 8 o'clock and found Naze.
He said, “Chuck, I want you to come with me.”
We walked up the Midway and to the other arcade. When we walked in he said, “Guess what I want you to do, Chuck. I want you to sweep all the floors and clean and use glass cleaner on all the games again.”
Well, I didn't see how this was different, but I went ahead and did it.
It was almost lunchtime when George Goodman walked in. I was cleaning the glass on all the games.
He said, “I want you to come down to the office.”
Mr. Duffy was there. He was kind enough to go out and buy us lunch. Mr. Duffy was just a nice guy and he did stuff like that all the time.
After lunch, I went back to the penny arcade and finished cleaning all the glass on all the machines.
Towards the end of the day, George Goodman came up and said that I had done a good job in here, too.
We went for a walk outside, and he was looking at the penny arcade. He said, “You know, I think the outside of the arcade could use another coat of white paint. Can you do that?”
I said, “Sure, why not?”
The next morning, I started painting the penny arcade. The outside of the arcade really wasn't that big, so it didn't take me long to do.
While I was painting the penny arcade, I could see the other groups of people that were setting up different parts of Idora Park. There were the welders working on the Wildcat. Every year, they replaced some of the boards on the Wildcat.
It was interesting to see them setting up the rides and cleaning them and making sure they were all greased and ready to go for when the park opened. Mr. Horvath, who was in charge of getting the rides together and doing maintenance on the rides, showed me where they stored all the rides. It was amazing to look inside of the building and see all the bits and pieces of rides that would eventually come out of the building and be turned into these big beautiful rides, like the sky rockets on top of the French fry stand.
After I was done painting, George Goodman came down and told me to meet with Naze at the other arcade and work with him for a while.
While I was with Naze, he showed me some of the easier fixes on the machines—how to get the change out if it jammed, where the on-and-off switches were, which breakers to hit if they were to go off inside the machine. He also showed me how to load the machines with the prizes.
The next day, I went with Naze up to the penny arcade. He showed me basically the same things, but told me that I probably wouldn't have to worry about the penny arcade up by the french fries stand because there was a young man named Jimmy Wellington who was working there in already knew all that.
After that it was two or three days before the park would open.
The next morning, George call me in to Mr. Duffy. They told me that instead of working on a game, I would be a breaker which is one of the reasons I worked with Naze. Breakers work at all the games, making sure the workers get their breaks.
They said that the next day, I would meet with the other breaker and finish setting up and getting the games ready.
When I got to work, Pat Duffy Jr. was standing outside with George Goodman and a guy that was probably about the same age as my older brother who got me the job.
George said, “Chuck, this is Pat.” He told us that we’d be setting up the prizes for the games.
I noticed he looked a lot like a younger version of Pat Duffy Jr. As we walked up the Midway to where the stuffed animals and other prizes were, he told to me that his name was Pat Duffy the Third.
We opened up the storage area. It was about the size of a two-car garage, and it was full—and I mean full—of boxes of stuffed animals for people to win. There were all kind of things—alligators, giraffes, cats, dogs, elephants. I was just amazed. We filled all the games where you can win prizes with the stuffed animals and the other prizes.
Finally it was time for the park to open. The opening day for Idora Park was a special and exciting day, kind of like a baseball team’s opening day. Except that working at Idora Park, we were all winners.