We moved to Newport News, Virginia, a bit too late to see Buckroe
Beach's amusement park, though I somehow saw a piece of the rocket ride
sitting out, waiting for a lucky scavenger with a pickup truck to come
along.

By the time we had a daughter, the carousel was nicely installed in
Hampton, near Blackbeard Point.  I took her there several times around
2004 and, for part of that time, the band organ (I don't know if it's
the same one it had at the park) was either working or being worked
on.  By the time we left, it seemed like they'd given up and gone to
a full-time boom box -- I don't need to tell anyone here how that made
me feel.

In 2005 we moved to West Springfield, Massachusetts, and quickly found
the merry-go-round that used to be at Holyoke's Mountain Park, a
trolley park that operated for nearly a century.  (Library of America
has a good book on it, written by the park's last carousel operator,
who also has or had an excellent web site with photos and audio.)  The
park featured not only a usually-working band organ, it also had a rack
of CDs of the organ for sale.  I also found CDs of the band organ that
came to the Big E (Eastern States Exposition) every year.

Three years or so after that, we moved to the Rochester, New York,
area, and Sarah took her final rides on the mass-produced replica
carousels found in shopping malls, complete with a vestigial
representation of an organ stamped in the plastic exterior.  The
replica carousels are two-stories tall, which makes up a little for
the small diameter.  It would be nice to think she got tired of
them because they weren't authentic, but she just aged out, I guess.
Sea Breeze Park, up in Irondequoit, New York, has its own carousel and
band organ, and also has CDs for sale, but Sarah has no more interest
in such a kiddie ride.

My last involvement with rotating ponies came when I got into a local
production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Carousel," where I pushed a
horse around the stage myself.  We had horses, but no actual carousel;
it's the magic of the stage!

Kip Williams
Pittsford, New York