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Lions, and tigers and unicorns? Oh my? Yes, there were unicorns; lions, tigers, even a large leaping frog, whose seat was the white center of a lily pad. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, me next!" I cried. I was nine, and wanted a turn on the carousel. The animals on it had been hand carved by an old-world master in Germany, in the late 1890's. And here it was now, 1964, EONS into his future. Even at age 9, I smiled, knowing how pleased the wood carver would have been to see kids laughing so. My sisters and I all wanted rides so we'd have a chance at catching the brass ring.

At age 9, I was too small to lean out far enough to even TRY, but that didn't stop me from wanting to. All Mom or Dad had to do was hold me around my waist as I leaned out, and reached up; the ring poked out of the slot it lounged in, winking in the sun as if to say "come here boys and girls, I'm here, just grab me, try now!" Darned if I didn't try.

And of course, all three of us wanted to ride the white Bengal tiger, with his ferocious teeth exposed in a snarl: or the unicorn, strong and tall, his fake saddle pained purple, faded from the centuries passed. We all hated the frog. My younger sister cried when Mom put her on it. It moved up and down real slow, and was on the inside of the carousel. Of course she was only six, but she was just as stubborn as the rest of us.

But the really fascinating part of that carousel wasn't its hand-carved-in-Germany animals. It wasn't even the fact that I felt the animals were magic. It was the fact that it stood in an out door national park in Virginia.

Great Falls National Park, Va: connected to Great Falls National Park, Md. by a mere foot bridge that hung across the Potomac River. The bridge was a carbon copy of the one in the movie "Shrek", except for the fact that the Potomac River raged with frothing water during lengthy rains, and not lava.

In the summer however, the Potomac was a mere trickle that wound through the deep gorge of the river's canyons. None of that bothered me though. It connected us from the Maryland side to the Virginia side, meaning all I had to do was wheedle Mom into having Dad take us across to the carousel. And Mom was an easy target, too. Such a soft touch; like the ducks that nipped my baby sister for the bag of bread crumbs she carried that one year, all three of us would nip at Mom's need to please her kids.

Personally, I think she gave in a lot, just to shut us up, and Dad went along with her for the same reason, but also cause he knew

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