Tilted Thinking

In homage to the State Fair, I am passing on some Midway memories for you. I think my earliest recollections of amusement rides were the Tilt A Whirl at Erie's Waldameer and the Wattsburg County Fair. It was the first ride along with the Scrambler and Merry Go Round that I remember from both. Totally old school. I have vividly burned in my head the image of someone in the car behind me getting sick and projectile vomiting on the ride as I heard it splattering on the side of my spinning car until the carny stopped the ride for us all. I also dreadfully recall the maniacal jerk at the Minnesota State Fair who got some kicks out of giving us all a 15 minute ride of torment which ruined the rest of the day at the fair as we just laid in a grassy knoll and waited for the waves to subside. 

 

That is why I was most enamored to read in a current magazine that the ride is a local invention from right down the road in Faribault. Herbert Sellner, woodworker extraordinaire, grabbed a patent for an "amusement apparatus" in 1927. It started when he was entertaining his young son on a chair placed atop his kitchen table. They operate on the chaos theory of math with 4-7 cars rotating around a fixed point on an adjustable platform. The weight distribution in each car can vary the intensity of each ride. Ironically one of the 2 oldest remaining original rides in the country still exists in Conneaut Lake Park where I also spent summers of my childhood. That one was put into operation in 1949.