The kiddie rides at Salisbury Beach were inside a barnlike structure that also had banks of noisy pinball machines. The rides were scaled to child-size and parents stood to the side while their offspring rode. Outdoors, the adult rides and midway faced the beach. The sky was often a misty flat white which gave the place a kind of gentle, unearthly light. The beach and its entertainments was another world where you and your family could go for an inexpensive afternoon escape. Outside the rides barn were fast food and sweets places, games, and souvenir shops like this one, the "Salisbury Discount House," where you could get T-shirts, towels, toys, and other beach supplies, as well as knick-knacks and joke "novelties." This is all gone but I want it to still exist somewhere. Maybe it does, somewhere in New Jersey or Delaware or Ocean City, despite Hurricane Sandy wrecking it.
Brown ink and watercolor on Bristol board, about 9" x 12", heavily restored in Photoshop, 1980.
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