Jantzen Beach "Feel Good" Day

Jantzen Beach was an amusement park built in 1928. It was the largest amusement park in the US at the time. It sprawled over 123 acres on Hayden Island...which lies at the northern tip of Portland. Vancouver, Washington is just across the Columbia River.

My favorite place was the swimming pool and then the huge Big Dipper Roller Coaster. My older brother Richard and our friend Jimmy Raxter used to get on the roller coaster and check out all the sites from its apex. You could see for miles. I was only six and sometimes worried I might fall out of it...there was only a bar across our laps.  Rich and Jimmy loved to get the chair swinging back and forth with me in the middle holding on for dear life. I could easily have just slipped out between the bar and seat...they thought it was hilarious to see me screaming for them to stop...I mighta just been hollering into the wind for all the good that did.  Sheesh!


When I was ten my mother took my little brother Tommy and I swimming. He was a real fish...he'd get in there and happily splash around literally all day. One day we had just taken time out for lunch and Tommy was back in the pool in a flash. I was standing on the side looking for him when I suddenly had a premonition that someone might be drowning. I scanned the pool and sure enough, there was a little girl right in the middle of the pool bobbing up and down. I was a fast swimmer and quickly reached her. She grabbed onto me coughing and sputtering, and hanging on for dear life. She was only 3 or 4 and had just somehow gotten in over her head. I looked around and sure enough her mother was by the edge of the pool crying herself and hugging me to pieces, thanking me for rescuing her daughter. I was pretty shy in those days, and simply muttered something like, "Ah, that's OK."

Now that was a "Feel Good" day.