Mike B.
Yelp
About 10 years ago (Phewf... I can't believe it's been that long). About 10 years ago (put's hands on knees and bends over and starts breathing heavily). Man... I'm old.
About 10 years ago I worked for a family in Cabin John MD as the personal assistant to the mother. I was a nanny. But I'm glad that they had posted the position with the title "Personal Assistant" or I might have never applied.
In any event, I would watch over the 13 year old boy and mainly take him to his fencing practice, make sure he got his homework done, and occasionally I'd cook dinner for the family. It was a pretty sweet set up. The family was some of the sweetest, brightest, and kindest people I've ever met.
Ok, back to the story. Every-time I would take the boy to fencing practice we would pass a sign that said "Candy Cane City." It was a parks sign as I remember it read MNCPPC in finer print below. We would pass it and talk about how grand Candy Cane City must be. We assumed by the name that this would likely be heaven on earth. Towering tree trunk thick candy canes would flank an entrance to a gum drop lined road that looped around seas of gummy bears, rolling licorice hills with snow cap snow caps, and gum ball machine plynths that held statues made out of rock candy, chocolate, and blown sugar that appeared like glass to the naked eye.
For months and months and months we would pass this Candy Cane City until finally one day we decided to drive in... and you know what... the funniest thing happened. We drove in to find a child's playground that resembled a thousand other playgrounds you've seen in your life with a sign in front of said playground that read "Candy Cane City," The most wonderful thing to this day, was that when we arrived, and got out of the car to inspect the most disappointing place on earth; a child was seated on one of the posts of the sign that read "Candy Cane City", facing towards the park, literally in tears (we could only imagine over his shocking realization); the perfect metaphor for anyone who expected Candy Cane City to be as grand as it should be, but was greeted with harsh merciless reality.
Ok... so what does this have to do with Funland? Funland could have potentially been the Candy Cane City of Rehobeth Beach Deleware... except... it's quite the opposite. It's actually fun! There's arcade games, there's interactive games, theres prizes that arn't those sticky hands attached to sticky ropes that get dirty immediately and become useless. There are more claw machines than I've ever seen in one place, and there is a tangible sense of enjoyment about the children and some of the adults within.
So the moral of this story is
Candy Cane City: Boo
Funland: Yay
I won two things out of the Star Wars claw machine while I was there; an evil black BB-8 and a Rey stuffed doll. They will both be on display at Yelp's Got Game ;)