{"id":133,"date":"2022-02-21T11:33:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T11:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/?page_id=133"},"modified":"2025-07-04T18:40:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:40:49","slug":"carousel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/?page_id=133","title":{"rendered":"Carousel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He parked the car and told his passenger that he\u2019d be back shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He crossed the grass toward the carousel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grandest Coney Island Style carousel ever made, this 1895 masterpiece was built by master carver Charles Looff and was his largest and most elaborate creation. For over a century, sixty-one intricately carved wooden horses and four ornate chariots had traveled around and around, delighting children and adults alike. Of the carved horses, fifty-six were jumpers\u2014all four feet suspended and linked to a mechanism allowing the rider to simulate a gallop. In addition, there was a ring game: outer carousel riders reached for rings from a dispenser as they passed. Most of the rings were iron, but a few were brass. A brass ring earned you a free ride. In his entire childhood of coming here with his mother, he had only gotten the brass ring once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, he and his mother went to the library when his father was unwell. Occasionally, if his mother had some extra money, they would visit the carousel afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what she\u2019d say. \u201cDaddy\u2019s not feeling well. Let\u2019s give him some peace and quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019d slip out the back door, walk down to the library and spend a few hours browsing the stacks. He\u2019d choose a book, she a magazine, and they\u2019d sit at a table in the corner and read. If a study room was free, she\u2019d read aloud to him. She had read classics. Around the World in Eighty Days, Gulliver\u2019s Travels, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn were his favorites. He loved it when she read to him, even after he was old enough to read those books himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019d stay away from home long enough, so that his father would be asleep when they got back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He knew, but never said, that his father wasn\u2019t sick at all. He was drunk. If she didn\u2019t want to talk about it, he would not push it. She protected him from his father, and in return, he accepted the pretense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father wasn\u2019t a mean drunk. He knew other kids in the neighborhood whose fathers would drink until they ended up beating everyone in the house. No one talked about it. You just knew. Sound carries through open windows. Closed windows, too, if you were yelling loud enough. His father wasn\u2019t like that. Most of the time. He\u2019d just drink too much and fall asleep on the couch. Sometimes, he\u2019d tell you a story you\u2019d heard a million times before and you\u2019d have to pretend that it was the first telling. It was annoying, but not a big deal. But, every once in a while, the man would take offense at nothing at all. She had a gift for seeing the warning signs and they\u2019d be out the door before any fireworks had even started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, he always felt safe when he walked into a library. He always felt joy upon seeing a carousel. She had whisked him to safety, exchanging any upsetting memories he might have had with scenes of reading in a quiet space and whooping for joy as he tried to grasp the brass ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once he left for college, she found employment and divorced her husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father got sober ten years after that. It was too late for his parents to have any kind of friendship, but she was always cooly cordial to her former husband whenever their paths had crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he stood watching the horses go around, listening to the squeals of the children as they reached out for the rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father walked up and stood beside him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow are you holding up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m fine. Just memories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember ever coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t. Mom and I came.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh. So, this is where you went?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere and the library.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHiding from me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry she had to protect you from me. I\u2019m sorry I wasn\u2019t there for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re here now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd she isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, she isn\u2019t. It\u2019s just chance, isn\u2019t it? You don\u2019t choose your family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, you don\u2019t. It\u2019s luck. You were lucky to have gotten the mother you had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. I got the brass ring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2021 Liza Cameron Wasser<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He parked the car and told his passenger that he\u2019d be back shortly. He crossed the grass toward the carousel. The grandest Coney Island Style carousel ever made, this 1895 masterpiece was built by master carver Charles Looff and was his largest and most elaborate … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lizacameronwasser.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}