Sally's Story

My parents moved to their new house in 1952 in MacAlpine from Baltimore.  Anywhere beyond the streetcar line ending in Ellicott City was considered the other end of the world for their families.  But Mom and Dad were determined to have their place to grow our family.  My sisters were 6 and 3.  I was one.  So in 1955, I was the one young enough to enjoy the opening of Enchanted Forest at it's best - and continued to do so for a few more years.  In high school, many of my friends worked at the Forest as drivers of Mother Goose, working in Robinhood's Barn, and one was actually Snow White!  After high school and marriage, my husband was a friend of the younger Harrisons.  After taking my son, Lee, to Enchanted Forest for his first trip, Kathy Harrison would call occasionally and ask me to bring Lee over for the day.  He was about 4 at the time.  I would drop him off to Kathy at Robinhood's Barn, and he would happily march in to be part of the behind-the-scenes as Kathy would take him with her through the day offering lollipops, walks through the backgrounds of several of the rides and displays.  My son's dad was a painting contractor, so in early spring, we would go to the Forest and Lee would play on the side of the lake where Daddy painted a fresh coat of blue paint on Willy the Whale. Now, one of my favorite days with my grandson, Ryan, has been to take him on a field trip to the Clark's Farm in spring 2006.  We wandered through the same characters and buildings in which his daddy had played as a child - and so had I.  Telling and re-telling the stories and rhymes that inspired the characters we both had a marvelous day.  The sad part was that as we rode through the woods on our hayride with the parents and the other pre-school children, the parents did not know "The Crooked Little Man and the Crooked Little House" rhyme.  That had been one of my favorites at the Forest.  I was so excited to see him there in the "refurbish area" because that meant that one day he too would be on display for the children.  So of course, as the only grandmother, I got to tell 20 or so Moms, Dads and their children "There was a crooked man...."