If You're A Disneyland Freak, Here's The Nuts-and-Bolts

As regular readers of The Garlic well know, we delve into, and, at times, have some fun with Obituaries.

Some just beg to be painted with satire, others, well, there's something about them, perhaps being impressive, and that they deserve some extra recognition.

We have the latter tonight, something we espied in SiliconValley.com today.

Cassidy: Silicon Valley innovator left legacy of fun and thrills

Karl Bacon was a quiet guy who never wanted much of a fuss. So when he died last month at 98, he almost slipped away from us without being noticed.

That first paragraph, and the next few that followed, wasn't making things any clearer.

Until we hit here;

In 1946, Bacon and partner Ed Morgan opened the Arrow Development Co. in Mountain View. The two were a tight team who started out doing some machine work for HP and just about anything else that would bring cash through the door. Bacon was the math mind, a self-taught engineer who tended to figure out what needed to be made while Morgan concentrated on how to manufacture it.

Then Morgan got the idea that they could build a merry-go-round for the city of San Jose, which they did. Soon a man named Walt Disney was talking to them about coming up with some rides for a new park he was opening in Anaheim. They did that, too.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Mad Tea Party, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, It's a Small World, Alice in Wonderland, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and more.

"They did most of the rides in Fantasyland," says Jane Bacon, 87, Karl's wife of 67 years. "They really didn't know what they were getting into."

She was speaking specifically of the flying Dumbos, which had a way of leaking hydraulic fluid in the early days, but she could have been talking about Bacon and Morgan's career in general. Because in the end what the two did was nothing less than revolutionize the amusement park business.

Not too shabby.

Pretty good to know, that your life's work touched millions, upon millions, primarily, in a very positive manner (even for those young ones that got the bejeeves scared out of them, or vomited, only to laugh about it as grown-ups, when their siblings dredged it up at some family gathering).


Some Other Garlic Obits

Heston Dead; Coroner Can't Pry Gun From Cold Dead Hands

Don Nottebart ... Now, This Is An Obit With Some Ooomph!

Swedish Film Icon Ingmar Bergman Dead at 89 ; Police Depressed, Working Through Emptiness, Not Ruling Out Foul Play

Obit - Avis Founder Pulls Off The Road at 92