The name of the ride was Searchin’ Safari. Join a mind-bending expedition in search of the absurdities in human behavior.
Like many of the rides at Theme Farm, this one was designed to be easily reconfigured, to keep up with topical issues. Your journey might take you in a totally different direction on any given day. You might go on a futile hunt for an honest politician one day, then explore the joys of living below the poverty line the next. On this particular morning, we would be traveling through time for an up-close look at an extinct species: The American Housewife of the 1960s.
At the entrance was a huge, bronze statue of a suburban housewife, of a half-century ago. Standing proudly in a kitchen apron, she held a frying pan tightly in a rubber-gloved fist, while balancing a screaming toddler on her hip. Her determined expression showed the resolve of a soldier ready to march into battle.
Back then, housewives were perceived as the very symbol of contentment. They seemed to have it all, but actually had very few freedoms. Before the decade was out, mothers, daughters, and wives would organize to form the Women’s Liberation Movement, and protest by burning bras and marching on Washington for equal rights.
And I thought only teenagers rebelled!
Behind the statue was the point of departure for an excursion into the wilds of 1960s America. Theme park guests boarded a rugged landrover, like the ones you see in National Geographic on the plains of the Serengeti, but with seating for a dozen passengers.
I took a sip of my Jiffy Fizz Cola and got in line.
A group of brave adventurers were just returning from the perilous journey, and the jungle jeep was ready to take on another load of passengers. Behind the wheel was a petite, lady Fritter, whose slender shoulders supported the long neck of a giraffe.
“All aboard!” she said into a microphone. “The next jungle adventure departs in three minutes.”
Her name was Miss Sally Bronson, but everyone called her Long Tall Sally. She had been my History teacher in school before taking on work as a Theme Farm ride operator.
After earning their American citizenship, Fritterz were tolerated by most humans, but a deep-rooted “fritterphobia” continued to linger just below the surface. Taking the teaching job was a risky move for Sally. Unfortunately, the endless harassment and rude pranks from students and teachers forced her to quit. Too bad. She was my favorite teacher.
“Room for one more?” I asked Sally.
“Amy!” she said excitedly. “I haven’t seen you in ages. What brings you out to Theme Farm?”
“Answers,” I said. “I want to learn all there is to know about the 1960s.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place, and this is the perfect ride to get you started. Get in.”
I took a seat right behind Sally and buckled my seatbelt.
“You’ll have to leave that behind,” she said, pointing to the beverage in my hand.
I started to toss it into a trash bin, then looked at the blue can and decided to conduct a little test.
“Did you know that Jiffy Fizz cans used to be red?” I said to Sally, studying her reaction.
“Where have you been,” she said, laughing. “They’ve always been blue.”
With her jungle jeep now full of novice explorers, Sally picked up her mic and turned to her passengers. “Everybody ready? Here we go.”
The vehicle’s powerful engine raced as Sally slammed it into gear. The jeep lurched forward, and we were on our way.
The ride began by trudging down a bumpy, muddy road that cut through a dark jungle. My skin moistened from the thick, muggy air. The sounds of wild birds and the grunts of ferocious animals were heard all around us.
“Please keep your seatbelts fastened,” Sally advised her passengers. “I may have to make sudden turns to avoid the rare species of frogs that inhabit the jungle floor. They are easily angered, and I’m not good at dealing with Toad Rage.”
The group chuckled and groaned at the same time.
“The creatures we will be encountering today are either already extinct, or high on the endangered humans list,” explained Sally. “You may be shocked at what you see. Many will be in awe. But all of you will be touched by their uncanny ability to survive in the wild. Most haven’t been seen since the early ‘60s, so keep a watchful eye out.”
The jeep slowed. We could just make out the sound of someone humming in a field of tall grass.
“Sh!” said Sally, her finger to her lips. “Get out your cameras. You are about to witness one of your distant relatives going about her daily routine.”
A clearing came into view that revealed a young woman. The animatronic figure was standing at an ironing board, surrounded by clotheslines, sagging from the weight of scores of shirts, pants, and bed sheets. She cheerfully hummed as she ironed, as the workload ahead of her gently swayed in the breeze.
“What a break,” whispered Sally. “This unusual behavior is rarely seen today. Notice how happy this specimen is. Being a domesticated breed, housewives gladly accepted the drudgery of housework.”
The jeep picked up speed, and we were soon on a flat plain that stretched for miles. On a grassy knoll, under a shade tree, a group of women sat in a circle on folding chairs. One dominant female stood in the center of them.
“Here’s a typical example of social interaction within the species,” said Sally. “Often referred to as parties, these gatherings were really nothing more than sales presentations.” The lead woman snapped a lid onto a plastic bowl, while her giddy guests applauded with delight. “With the tight, grocery budgets imposed on housewives by their mates, preserving unfinished meals was a necessity. With this storage innovation, leftovers would stay fresh for days.”
We next traveled over a desert landscape. Off to one side, in a deep trench, men in pith helmets were digging at the dry earth.
“Here,” said Sally, “an anthropological dig is underway. This excavation has uncovered rare, mid-century kitchen artifacts. Notice the labor-saving devices, like easy-clean ovens, motorized vegetable slicers, and faucets that dispensed dish soap right out of the tap.”
Sally further remarked that replicas of these items could be purchased in the gift shop at the end of the ride.
Just ahead was a single-family tract house, like the thousands that were built during that decade. We slowed down as Sally described the scene:
“It was once thought that ‘60s housewives hibernated, since they were rarely seen outside of their above-ground dens. We now know that she was doing anything but sleeping, as demonstrated by this family unit in their natural habitat.”
The jeep crept past the living room window. Inside, a man rested comfortably in an easy chair. His slippered feet were propped up on a padded foot stool, as he puffed smoke rings from a tobacco pipe.
“Notice the dominance of the male,” said Sally. “Having fathered several offspring, it was natural to assign the rearing of the children to the female.”
Passing by another window, a boy and girl were lying on the floor watching Beany and Cecil cartoons on a black and white TV.
The kitchen then came into view, where a woman stood over a hot stove. Steam from boiling pots and pans filled the small space, as she wiped the sweat from her brow.
“It was once thought that females were happy with this arrangement,” said Sally, “but research has proven otherwise. They actually detested it. But change was in the wind, and women of the ‘60s would soon raise their voices in protest.”
The jeep came to a halt as we encountered a rushing river in our path. The water didn’t appear too deep that our sturdy vehicle couldn’t easily cross it, so we ventured onward. But halfway across, the engine suddenly stalled.
“Uh oh!” said Sally. “This couldn’t happen in a worse place.”
I heard a faint, distant murmuring in the dense brush behind us. It got increasingly louder as Sally tried to get the engine going again.
Suddenly, an object flew over our heads. It was a golf club.
“Get down!,” shouted Sally. “We’re in Liberation Country.”
The murmuring turned to angry chanting, like a primitive jungle tribe on the hunt. More projectiles came at us: tennis rackets, poker chips, racetrack programs.
Sally tried repeatedly to get the jeep started, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. Flaming bras and girdles flew overhead like Molotov cocktails. The message of the chanting became clearer:
“Rights for women!”
“Rights for women!”
Finally, the engine started. Sally grinded the gears. “Hang on!”
A moment later, we were safely on the outer bank. The threatening voices stopped. We all let out a collective sigh of relief, just as a bowling ball landed in the river next to us, creating a wave of water that soaked everyone in the jeep.
My fellow passengers and I arrived back at Base Camp—laughing, while showing off our damp clothes to each other.
As I unbuckled my seatbelt, Sally placed her hand on my shoulder. “Wait here, Amy,” she said. Then she announced to the others: “Thank you for joining me today. For those of you who got wet, I would offer you a towel, but I have a dry sense of humor.”
Half-laughing and half-moaning, the passengers disembarked.
I stayed in the jeep as Sally pulled up to the next group of passengers, but she wouldn’t allow them to board.
“Sorry folks,” she said to the waiting crowd, “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties, and the ride will be down for some time. Please try back later.”
Then Sally and I drove off alone.
We passed through a tall gate into the ride’s backstage area, where I got a rare glimpse at the behind-the-scenes operations. I saw the long hoses from air compressors that gave life to the robotic characters. Dozens of sound effect speakers were hidden among the jungle foliage. The best part was seeing the huge air cannons that launched women’s undergarments at stranded travelers.
Sally looked over at me. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there, Amy?” she said.
“How did you guess?”
“I noticed you twisting your hair with your finger during the ride. You used to do the same thing in class when something was bothering you.”
Sally turned a corner, and we were behind the tract house. The rigid animatronic figures, looking eerily human, were turned off.
“Here’s your stop,” said Sally.
“What do you mean?”
“End of the line. Everybody out.”
I looked at her, baffled, but stepped off the jeep like she asked.
“Now what?” I said.
“Only Theme Farm would know,” she answered, then drove away.
I stood there alone in the spooky quietness. There were no jungle sound effects, and no rushing water noise from the stream, that was now a dry riverbed.
Then I heard a voice. “Kinda creepy out here, isn’t it?”
It seemed to come in the direction of the mechanical housewife, but she wasn’t moving.
Then I heard the voice again. “I’m talking to you, Amy!”
Someone was standing behind me.
I jumped as I spun around. “Man!” I said, “Don’t sneak up on people like that.” I was speaking to a woman, who looked awfully familiar.
“Don’t you recognize me, Amy?” said the intruder from out of nowhere.
Suddenly, I realized that I did know her. She was my grandmother, as a young woman! I recognized her from an old photo I had of her when she was in her 20s. She worked as a model back then. The picture was clipped from a Ford dealership catalog. It showed her happily waving while riding in the back seat of a Lincoln Continental convertible.
“Grandma?” I said. “Is that you?”
She smiled. “How did you like the ride?”
“Never mind that!” I said. “How can you be here?”
“You mean, because I’m dead? If I remember correctly, you were about 3 years old when I kicked the bucket.”
“Then you can’t be who you say you are. You’re a robot, like these other fake human figures around here.”
“So sure of everything, aren’t you? Just like your mother.”
I reached out to poke her face with my finger to see if it was made of rubber, but she held up her hand and stopped me.
“See that character over there?” she said, pointing to the frazzled woman in the kitchen. “That was me in the early ‘60s, just after I married your grandfather. I was barely 18 when I took the plunge.”
“You were married that young?” I said.
“I didn’t want to, but single women living alone was considered daring in those days, and I wanted my independence more that anything in the world—just like you do.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Grandmothers know everything. I know about Clifford, Hubert, Sally, even Zeb the Abra-ca-zebra. But mostly, I know what’s in your heart.”
I was too young to have known Grandma before she died, and I had no memory of her. Whoever, or whatever I was talking to was no more real than those human-looking machines around me. But real or fake, I was moved by her presence, nonetheless.
“How’s your mother?” asked Grandma.
“She hates me!” I said. “That’s why I want to move out. She would sooner see me dead than spend one more day with me in that house.”
“Oh, that can’t be true. I brought her up better than that.”
“Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. Let’s just say there’s no love lost between us. I don’t connect with her anymore.”
“That’s not possible. There’s an inseparable bond that exists between all mothers and daughters. Deny it all you want, but it’s there, and will be for as long as you live. You’re problem is that you only see her as a mother, instead of a human being with feelings. And by the way, she doesn’t want you to move out. No mother, no matter the circumstances, wants to see her young leave the nest.”
“But I want to leave the nest.”
“I know it gets pretty cramped in there as we get older. There never seems to be room enough to do all that we want. But the key is to make room. You’d be surprised how roomy the nest can be when you share it. Patience, Amy. The time will come for you to be on your own, but not now.”
“But you did it in the ‘60s.”
“Good lord, child! The ‘60s went extinct long ago. You’re living in the past. Try living in the here-and-now for a change.”
Real or not, this was one grandmother who told it like it is—and it was definitely what I needed to hear. I was grateful for that.
I stepped forward and put my arms around her, but they passed right through her body. Then she started to fade away like a vanishing wisp of smoke in the wind.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” said Grandma.
“Forgot what?”
She was almost invisible now, as her voice trailed off.
“Embrace today, for you cannot touch the past.”