Conscious Choice: The World and the Theme Park

May 2000

The World and the Theme Park

by Edmund J. McDevitt

Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 was a world-class celebration of the Industrial Revolution. It was also perhaps the world’s first theme park. It combined education, entertainment, and excess in a way that became a model for theme parks to come. As the twentieth century progressed, and exploitation progressed with it, the success of other World’s Fairs informed the plans of those places lucky enough not to become steel plants, open pit mines, waste dumps, or residential enclaves. Open land all over the country fell to the theme park moguls, who built all-encompassing vacation and tourism sites, where tourists grow ripe for plucking.

Today, millions of people travel with their families to theme parks every year. Some parks are amusement sites: multiple roller coasters and other thrill rides. Some are much more than that. None of them is Jurassic Park — at least not yet. But some of them are large, completely controlled environments. The Disney complex in Florida is so vast both in concept and size as to defy understanding. It is composed of several theme parks conjoined with planned communities and living spaces. Its extreme artifice is very attractive, highly managed, carefully insulated, and very well marketed.

What’s wrong with that? A lot more than meets the eye. Rampant theme-parkism and all of the advertising and marketing that goes with it presents the world as a place that can only be interesting if it is organized, prepackaged, and consumed. Like our mass media, theme parks flatten the world, eliminating the places and people who are extraordinary, strange, wonderful, sad, and amazing.

Fortunately, not every force in America has seen the world as a resource to consume. Or if they did, they were wise enough to want to save some for later. One of the greatest proponents of truly "wise use" was Theodore Roosevelt, who established our National Parks. Roosevelt’s beloved and embattled legacy stands in stark contrast to the amusement and theme "parks" that steal our time, money, and land (not to mention good taste).

What happens to a family that chooses not to vacation at Disney World or Epcot Center or, for that matter, any theme park or resort? Do they just stay home? Maybe not. A lot depends upon what one expects from a destination, or the lack of one. And so, the first thing that true vacationers must do is remove from their minds the patina of advertising and marketing, the acquired perception that one can have a good time only where human order has been imposed: a resort, a theme park, a beach with cabanas, even a safari (which is a sort of Jurassic Park).

By the way, it’s important to keep in mind that this patina removal might be easier for adults and young children than for those school-age creatures who have already begun to expect quick and frequent gratification. Amazingly, though, you needn’t worry; your children will be quick to catch on to the pleasures of real experience — as long as they get to do some prerequisite complaining. Once the patina is removed, though, everyone will notice that no matter how hard some business interests try to turn the country into a coast-to-coast, border-to-border theme park, our land and our people foil them by offering the most lasting — and interesting — impressions.

The Point of a Place

Several years ago my wife and I celebrated her birthday by going to Vail, Colorado for ten days. We stayed at a resort hotel, because I had lots of frequent traveler points that got us there. But it was September, and we were at a winter resort, so few of the hotel’s special "features" were in place. Our hotel served as a base from which to venture out beyond the carefully sculpted resort. At first, we visited human-created places like museums and bike trails and hot springs pools. And we stopped turning on the TV when we returned to the room. We consulted a few books about the area and then stowed all but two of our references: a good map and a book about the roadside geology of Colorado (part of a series I have come to love). And we began to make some real discoveries. We hiked the nearby mountain trails, we sat near unimproved ponds and lakes, and we explored the site of a long-dormant volcano. And finally, we simply wandered. I still remember it, eleven years later, as one of the best wanders we’ve ever done.

The Beginner’s Course (and a Master at the Craft)

If wandering is a little advanced for you or your family, though, you needn’t capitulate to Disney. Thanks to Roosevelt, and Muir, and some others, you can target a specific destination, such as a state or national park, and explore the traveling paths and trails that clear the way through land that refuses to be tamed. Eventually you, too, will begin to wander, and once you begin, you won’t want to give it up — and you won’t have to.

One of my favorite people in the world has made into an action plan his belief that life itself is a journey. He is a minister who grounds himself by exploring. He loves city neighborhoods and though much of his recent exploration has been done in Chicago’s many neighborhoods, he will explore any city he happens into.

It has been his habit of many years to ride his bicycle (or, since he recently broke his elbow in a fall, drive his car) into a neighborhood he does not know and to start walking. He stops in local shops, wanders through local churches, eats in neighborhood greasy spoons. He does the first forays on his own, but I have accompanied him on many of his return visits. On one trip to a locale in Chicago, I went with him into a gallery. The owner, an artist and daughter of a Chicago celebrity, has, in a few visits, made him a confidante.

In other Chicago trips we have visited ethnic neighborhoods. Once, on our way to see a Day of the Dead exhibit at the Mexican Museum, he took me through Pilsen, where Chicago’s Bohemians, who now have scattered to Berwyn and other suburbs, first settled. Many of the churches remain, their lintels and arches still adorned in Czech signs, their side walls spectacularly muraled with Mexican religious and folk paintings. Jaw-dropping does not describe what happens upon encountering such things.

My friend and his wife have traveled widely through the Midwest, seldom taking Interstates. They love to find village fairs and church suppers and towns with obscure museums in them. And the stories they bring back! We always get to take the trips vicariously after they get back, stopping with them as they revisit verbally what they have experienced and seen. Every stop has a story and its own mental picture, more picturesque and individual than any photo one might take.

Do It Yourself

My wife and I have taken our cue from him. Last year we made a brief stop in Wisconsin, on our way back from a spectacular trip through Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, Sault Saint Marie, and down through Northeastern Wisconsin. As we drove through Peshtigo, which is about ten miles southwest of the twin cities of Menominee (MI), and Marinette (WI), we saw signs for the Peshtigo Fire Museum. I recalled that on the very day of the Great Chicago Fire, October 8, 1871, the little town of Peshtigo had a fire even more horrible. The town lost 800 of its citizens in a forest fire that turned the town into a fire-storm zone the equal of any saturation-bombed city in World War II. Ultimately, it burned 1.2 million acres, killing a total of 1,200 people.

We arrived at the museum to find the two matrons who ran it ready to close; they were not particularly happy that we still wanted to make a quick tour. But we were engrossed. This little place held hundreds of artifacts that survived the great fire, and much historical material; it is a gem that few people outside Peshtigo ever see. And though the matrons ushered us out after about ten minutes and locked the doors behind us, our discovery proved unforgettable — and satisfying in a way that thrill rides and tchotchkies never can be.

I know this because I’ve visited theme parks and amusement parks of all kinds. I have stories to tell from those visits, but they’re shallow and disconcerting. In some way, they aren’t mine. Instead, they’re pre-prepared stories, fast food for the mind. But the stories I have from places like Peshtigo and Pilsen? Now those are stories I can tell.

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