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| 'The terror began, I saw quite clearly ... when the attendant who worked the controls pointed to an open gate on one of the metal baskets in which people ride.' |
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| Ferris wheel operator resting at county fair in central Ohio, by Ben Shahn (1898-1969), for the Farm Security Administration, August, 1938. From the Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, USA. |
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| 'I detest the merry-go-round. There is absolutely nothing merry about it.' |
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| Merry-go-round at an Ohio country fair, by Ben Shahn, for the Farm Security Administration, 1935 - 1942. From the Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, USA. |
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When I was young, I was called Round-Head. I am not to this day sure why. I spent many hours scrutinizing myself in the mirror and, as far as I could tell, my head was as flat as could be. So was my face. So were my pimples.
I use to lay awake at night and rub my fingers over my cheeks and chin. My face was bumpy and oily. In the mirror, my face was flat. Each touch of the mirror would reveal my face as dry and cool, and confirm the flatness. It was extremely disconcerting to be called Round-Head.
Two results of these youthful exploits enforced the continual experience of the presence of a terrible oppression of contradictions. To this day, I cringe each time I hear or read the phrase 'jumbo shrimp’. A friend once referred to a midget as a 'big little person’. I was outraged. A structure downtown sports the sign: Terminal Building. Wherever language interrupts the smooth flow of existence, it is terribly frustrating. You can understand why, if something is called ‘the fair’, I expect it to be at least pleasant. If the adventure proves to be a horrifying experience, like the event I am telling you about, it is doubly horrifying. This hatred of oxymorons, contradictions, paradoxes and the like was the first result of my childhood adventures in the mirror.
The second result was that I have a complex against round things. Eyes had annoyed me since before the age of fifteen. Now they are a thing to be fought as valiantly as a dragon on a street corner, or a gigantic ape in the big city. I have had, for the longest time, a secret admiration for those pre-Columbians who declared the world flat. At parties, I have been known to vehemently, fanatically, insist that the world is egg-shaped. God help the man or woman who uses the phrase 'the whole round world’. God doubly help the person who says, 'Let's walk around the block’.
Around the block! Circle the square? It cannot be done. They mean, of course, let's walk in straight lines until we come to a street corner, then let us turn left or right, depending on the direction we are travelling, so that we remain on the walkway and not go into the street.
I detest the merry-go-round. There is absolutely nothing merry about it. I dragged Julie past the despicable series of connected objects -- giant plastic turtles and the like -- answering her protests with an incoherent series of wheezing and moans.
‘I will not, I will not, I will not board that over-the-ground hell,’ I exclaimed.
‘Oh, Farley!’
‘I will not ride that visible generator of horror and error.’
‘Oh, Farley!’
The Fun House is fun. It also resembles a house. It has doors. The track never goes in a predictable order. I do not mind disorder. I simply detest chaos masquerading as orderliness.
I hate unreasonable orderlies.
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| 'You can understand why, if something is called the fair, I expect it to be at least pleasant. If the adventure proves to be a horrifying experience, like the event I am telling you about, it is doubly horrifying.' |
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| Advertisement on a grandstand at a county fair, central Ohio, by Ben Shahn (1898-1968), for the Farm Security Adminstration, August 1938. From the Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, USA, |
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The one compromise I allowed Julie was the Ferris Wheel. First, the Ferris Wheel is a shortened version of what must be its original name. Second, I reasoned that a wheel is not a circular object if it is housed in the triangle crates, which hold it up in the air. I am only passively soothed by the phrase 'hold it up in the air’. If a thing is indeed in the air, why does it need to be held up?
My question is rhetorical. This sad fact makes me unhappy. I have asked a question. The question does not expect an answer. Please answer the question for yourself, to yourself. This self-responsible activity will make my happy. Among all my other phobias, I have a fear of heights. Actually, I do not mind that there are heights. My fear is being on a height. To be more precise, I fear losing the height in a rapid manner through a series of extremely non-Zeno-like progressive steps of decline. Some people call it ‘falling’.
If I imply that I, in some manner or another, like the Ferris Wheel, I need to clarify my likes and dislikes. I do not mind ascending while I am on a Ferris Wheel. I positively enjoy coming down while on a Ferris Wheel. As long as I am still on the Ferris Wheel! I do, however, require that the descent occurs at a reasonable rate of speed consistent with the speed of the ascent of the vehicle. What makes my riding the Ferris Wheel difficult is the fact that I regard the top third of the ride as absolutely horrifying. 'Compromise' is not the right word for me to use in this situation. The top third detracts from the other two thirds of the ride. From the moment the carriage into which passengers are place -- and locked! -- settles after the first jerk of an arch toward the top until the horizon in the gunnery sights of terrified eyes begins to rise, I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. The enjoyable, or should I say 'non-repellent' two-thirds pales in significance under the weight of the horror of the top one third of the ride.
Typically, I require the enjoyment in which I engage to actually be enjoyable. The Ferris Wheel, however, at best, offers the enjoyment of relief.
I have never been afraid the Ferris Wheel will wind up rolling off the support grid, roll through the park, and roll onto the highway. That only happens in cartoons. Nor am I afraid, no matter how many over-weight people board the metal carriages, that they will all shift at one time, causing the Ferris Wheel to topple to the side. That is a fear, which may be held by a paranoid person, probably pampered by schizophrenia or delusions with regard to physics. Ferris Wheels will roll onto the highway before they topple to the side.
Fat people do not bother me. I do not refer to them as round. If nothing else, their ears and feet stick out.
No; my fear is rational. I am scared to death of the prospects of the Ferris Wheel's nuts and bolts rusting, the heavy metal structure putting overt and undue pressure on the loosened metal grid, and the entire housing unit collapsing. I would not particularly mind if the housing unit collapsed and shrivelled into a pile of metal rubble as long as no one was hurt. Yet my intuition, backed up by too much application of too much reason, as encouraged by too much imagination, tells me the issue would not rest there. I believe -- and I think I can provide proof-texts from Holy Scripture -- that once the metal coupling uncouples, and the girders and beams become a gigantic surrealistic portrait of scrambled eggs, that every notch and bend of the metal bars which compose the Ferris Wheel would strain and shimmy, shake and shutter into a gigantic surrealistic pile of dumplings to go with the aforementioned eggs.
The Ferris Wheel itself, as you no doubt know, is made of straight bars, which are welded, bolted and soldered together. It is much less a wheel than a series of straight bars assembled in such a manner as to resemble a round object. When you are close to a Ferris Wheel or, indeed, on one, you notice that there is nothing circular about the object. Yet, as suggested above, wheels need not be circular.
I do not mind things which are not circular, or spherical beings made to resemble round things. This is a mere mathematical trick. I do not mind mathematics. In fact, I frequently turn to mathematical problems for comfort. I enjoy figuring out the square root of numbers. I am, I confess, a little leery of round numbers.
I assume a person named Ferris, who was an engineer, or mathematical genius, invented the Ferris Wheel. This being the case, I assume he or she shortened the original name of what we call the Ferris Wheel from, for example, the John or Martha Ferris Straight Bar Electronic Structure Bolted and Welded Together to Resemble a Wheel from a Distance.
I do not hold The Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. Ferris responsible for the simply awful day I had.
The terror began, I saw quite clearly, during the positively enjoyable part of the ride when the attendant who worked the controls pointed to an open gate on one of the metal baskets in which people ride. The particular gate in question was not closed properly -- was not locked! -- yet inasmuch as there were no people in the particular basket to which it was attached, there was no immediate danger. What there was should be called an annoying clanking sound which resulted each time the gate went slapping past a grid as the Ferris bar, which was welded to resemble a wheel, went up or down past a giant pole in the support system. Ferris Wheels go up or down. They do not go around. At best, they rise in an arching motion, then down in an arching motion. Well, the motion does not arch. The path arches.
The operator took a swing at the gate. Julie and I had a perfect view inasmuch as the offending carriage was directly across from us during our, if you will allow the metaphoric mix of a mathematical equation, bottom quarter descent. He missed. The door clanged and banged as the bars and welds of carriages and straight bars rose and, again, as they fell. Now my private one-third horror was accompanied by a quadrangular obnoxious noise.
My Lord! It was the noise of the collapse of the Ferris! I was convinced that was true. Oh, sweet Lord! If only I was deaf, and had no sense of equilibrium. If only I were a grapefruit.
No; a banana.
The next time around, the attendant swung at the gate and, missing again, shrugged. Just as Julie and I passed the station from which he was leaning, we heard him say, ‘Damn obstinate gate. I'll get it next time around.’
Around!!
We rose. Clanging and banging accompanied our rising. The top third of the ride was worse than a nightmare. I squeezed Julie's arm for support. I berated myself all the way down: squeezed for support! How is such a thing possible? Agggargg! How idiotic can I have been?
We saw the attendant lean way, way out. The gate clipped him under the jaw and, as he fell, again in the side of the head. His feet, as they say, left the station.
My fear, my horror, terror, sudden fatigue, cannot be described. The experience of these horrid and horrible intensities lasted an interminable and indeterminate length of time. My screams, I was told later, annoyed Julie very much. She would have objected, but she was concerned to remove the object, which was making her arm turn first orange, then a foul purple. For weeks afterward, the following thought was indelibly imprinted on my mind and arose in my head whenever I did not concentrate on an otherwise arbitrary algebraic formula:
One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. One third. Two thirds. Eternity.
Eternity, in this logarithm, as well as in life itself, was nothing but an abrupt ending!
To this day, whenever I see people whose heads are more round than not, I enthusiastically divide their heads into quadrants and create explanatory pies. I colour different sections of their face and dream the dream of triangles and square elevators.
My psychologist recommended fishing. At first I thought he was mad. I detested sitting above the placid mirror of the lake. But if you would ever pull a fish forth from the water and watch the fish wiggle and wag, flip and flop while frantically fanning its tail and body, you will know the true meaning of health.
Copyright G. David Schwartz, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2003
Fixed October 15, 2003.
FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT OHIO AND THE PRAIRIES
External links will open as new pages.
You might need to close them after you've read the stories.
Great Northern Plains 1880-1920
City of Cincinnati, Ohio
Ohio prairies
Prairie nature centre
Biological and geological features
Physiographic regions (bioregions)
Ohio's Biodiversity
Restoring the prairies, Cincinnati Enquirer, January 7, 2003
Great Plains Restoration Council - The Buffalo Commons proposal
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