Gwynn Oak and Hairspray
"You really have to go see that play, Pat. You look just like the lead character." I nodded my head at my co-worker's comment. He wasn't the first person to point out to me that the female protagonist in the musical Hairspray, a chubby female wearing the ubiquitous bow in the center of a circle of bangs,- a style very popular during that era- resembled my own chubby middle-aged self. I'd long ago ditched the bow in the circle of bangs hairstyle but was still a chubby, pretty-faced female. As was Rikki Lake in the movie of the same name.
It's an offhand comment made by my colleagues. They could not possibly know that I not only looked the part of the female lead in that musical, I really LIVED it. And it wasn't such a pretty life.
In fact, the writer of that movie, Barry Levinson, is from my home town of Baltimore. He was writing about that city's Gwynn Oak Park, once a darling of Baltimore, the town's only city-based amusement park. Gwynn Oak Park was a hallmark of the civil rights era though many students today have likely never heard of the place. I remember it so well in that it was not only a place of endless hours of my childhood delight, it was also my first introduction to blatant bigotry.
Gwynn Oak Park was a segregated establishment. Colored persons were not allowed entrance.
"Tasha, Pierre and Jerold will be going to the Enchanted Forest," I remember Sister Digna telling my second grade class.
My seven- year old eyes regarded the three students named. They were all colored. I wondered even then just why Tasha, Pierre and Jerold couldn't go to Gwynn Oak with the rest of the class.
Every year the parochial schools of Baltimore rented Gwynn Oak park for a day. We were all given bright yellow badges to pin on our shirts. The badges allowed us entry on any rides in the park as many times as we could get on and off of them. For weeks leading up to the event I was filled with happy anticipation. I loved going on Gwynn Oak's roller coaster. Those times when I'd been to the park with my family a ride on the roller coaster cost fifteen cents a turn. With the badge I could ride it over and over, not limited by the two dollars my Dad would give me for the entire day. The prior year, as a first grade student, I'd rode the roller coaster over twenty times! I remember laying in bed that night and feeling the thrill of the coaster's first big drop by a thrilling dip in my stomach that came from my memory alone. Over and over I would think of the slow climb up the coaster's big hill, then my stomach would react with the same sudden dip and pleasant thrill just as it had when I was riding it earlier that day. This even though I was laying in my own bed! To a second grader, a trip to Gwynn Oak park with unlimited rides was paradise.
That park's roller coaster was nowhere near the height or drop of today's monster coasters. But to an excited seven year old it was as sweet an anticipation as a child could dream.
I wondered why Tasha, Pierre and Jerold couldn't come along. They were parochial school students just like me. What was the Enchanted Forest, I wondered. Why did the Enchanted Forest allow Tasha, Pierre and Jerold to enter when Gwynn Oak would not? Why did the nuns and priests of the parochial schools not rail at the Gwynn Oak management regarding their very un-Christian attitude towards persons of color? Didn't the sisters teach us that Jesus loves everyone? Wouldn't that include Tasha, Pierre and Jerold? Didn't Jesus especially love the little children?
Could the lady on the right be Kaitlyn's Grandmother?
"Patricia, just as soon as you let the colored in Gwynn Oak the place will go down hill," my father patiently explained to me when I presented some of my childish questions to him. His response was probably a typical Baltimore native's attitude of the time and was likely exactly why Gwynn Oak would not allow the colored. I wondered how Tasha, Pierre and Jerold would make the place go down hill any more than I would.
Gwynn Oak eventually became a nationwide focal point of the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. This was when I was right about the age of the Hairspray protagonist. This was when I was old enough to understand the bigotry and hatred of people like my father. This was when I could not forgive the complacent hypocrisy of Baltimore's Christian community.
Because Tasha, Piere and Jerold deserved the same gleeful anticipation of the upcoming trip, as well as the joy of re-living the thrill of the coaster's drop in the following night's dreams. Because there were many children such as myself who grew up not understanding it at first, and despising it later.
Though I was quite white, I would march with the blacks who protested segregation. Young and idealistic, I often couched my participation with an ideal that I was part of it all for Tasha, Pierre and Jerold. My father was often livid with me, badgering me about my stupidity deep into the night. Martin Luther King was my hero.
They were heady and changing times, those mid-sixties of the Civil Rights Revolution. Gwynn Oak eventually began admitting black patrons in response to public pressure. Gwynn Oak eventually died a business death. Urban amusement parks, tiny affairs with dated rides, were part of the past. Though my father righteously maintained that Gwynn Oak would still be around if they hadn't began admitting blacks.
My story's too lengthy and filled with vague innuendoes and the confused memories of a child. When my much younger colleagues tell me how much I resemble the female character in Hairspray I don't have the heart to bend their ears about childhood bedtime thrills and happy anticipation. For sure I could never explain Tasha, Pierre and Jerold. To them it's a happening and popular musical, simply all the rage.
I lived it. The experience helped form me and fashion my mindset.
And I am a far better person for having lived it than for merely resembling the lead female character.
4 comments:
I am from Baltimore too and have many remembrances of Gwynn Oak Park and Enchanted Forest too as a matter of fact. It is a shame that neither one of them are still around. Kids today have no idea of what they are missing.....I am still in Baltimore and miss both places terribly.
I remember the school picnics, the Cub Scout picnics, and the Church picnics. There will never be another time or place like Gwynn Oak Park in the 50's. No matter what group you were with, the routine was the same! The adults take you to where they park your lunch. And then it happened! You just go and go and go, anywhere in the park. You run from ride to ride. The safest place that ever existed in this world. No perverts, no bullies, no one who might threaten you or rob you.
I remember Gwynn Oak so well.
It's hard to imagine today that I was as young as 13 years old, possibly 12, and was allowed to take a bus across town from Waverly to go to the park.
I also found in my later years that I had two people in my life that were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum concerning the park.
One was Helen Brown, a white woman, and civil rights advocate who marched, and was arrested there, in 1963.
The other was Dave Price, who was in my class, and was the son of the owner of Gwynn Oak.
The park, and those tumultuous days, certainly left an impression on me that would last forever.
And the Grandfather was correct: The park was never the same after that, closing fairly shortly after the national incidents took place.
Just as a side thought: I remember seeing Bo Diddly and the band at the park's "Dixie Ballroom". Such an ironic name for a venue...
I am glad I found your site. I often think of Gwynn Ok and Glen Echo and hopee there would be so memories somewhere. I was very, very young but still remember the fun I had with my parents and grandparents. Wish there were some pictures to see. Thanks, Dale
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