Here's the story from the Jamestown Post-Journal: Lakewood Beach.
Many thanks to Sue Siecker for sending it along.
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| Lakewood Beach today |
It was a dangerous damn thing. At least once a week someone got hurt on it, I remember.
I remember it vividly because I was a lifeguard there for four years and sometimes had to patch up people who got hurt.
That doesn't count the people who swam there at night and jumped off the top of the tower.
But is was a very cool, popular apparatus that gave me two extra weeks of work per summer - one to put it together, the other to take it down.
The village got rid of the derrick and slide decades ago. Too dangerous to insure, I understand. And, predictably, use of the beach dropped off.
If anyone has a photo of the slide and derrick, I would love to publish it here.
1 comment:
I spend most summer days at Lakewood Beach and several memorable nights, too! One night in particular is etched deeply in my brain. Several of us teenagers (I can name a few but won't out ya), met at the beach sometime long after dark. The derrick beckoned, we doffed our clothes and swam out to use the diving board and slide. One of us swam back to shore to turn on the hose that lubricated the slide, and the games began. A few of us jumped off the top of the slide into about 10' of water, holding ourselves as we hit the surface on the way down to prevent injury! We must have made too much noise, which brought the cops. We saw the car at the top of the hill and we all slid into the water. Hiding behind pilings, we shivered as the searchlight played upon the water, but the police never got out of the car.
I also remember the large black inflatable rafts that predated the derrick. I worked on my swimming technique a long time so I could pass the test that let you go beyond the kiddie section and venture out to those big, bouncy rafts. Did you ever run all the way to the end of the single black tube (and back)that was only tied on one end? I don't think I ever made it, but I think Van Swearingen might have. He used to do flips off the diving board, something else I never mastered.
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