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Feature Story Ocean View Joe Leatherman My parents divorced when I was a year old and by the time I was eight, I had become quite a handful for my single mother. So in 1964 I was shipped off to Norfolk from Cleveland Ohio on a Greyhound bus, to live with the father I had never known. I was terrified and didn’t know what to expect. Turned out the old man worked at OV Amusement Park, our first stop after picking me up at the bus station. He took me around the whole park and introduced me to everyone. Dad worked at various games part-time after his day job at the shipyard, and my Grandmother, who had been employed there since 1948, sold tickets at different rides, and in later years worked at the Snakes Alive and petting zoo attractions. We lived a block away on Portview Ave for about 10 years, in a small four room cottage behind the Rosele Theater and next to the Golden Furniture store (this building later housed a gameroom/hippie hangout called the Golden Palace. I was quickly accepted by the close knit group of park employees, and was a member of the park family. During the summer I had the run of the place for twelve hours a day. All the employees knew me, and I had a nice little business operation going, running change to the ticket booths and doing errands for the help, in exchange for tips and free rides. My base of operations was the work shop at the penny arcade. In exchange for keeping the glass on the pinball machines clean and the arcade free of trash, the technician, Clifton Reed, would pop off 10 or 20 games on my favorite machine. He’d let me hang out in his shop, and nap on his well worn couch when I felt the need. I’d watch “Reed” as he repaired the machines, amazed at his skills, which I’m sure was a big part in my developing an interest in electronics, a field I’ve been employed in for 26 years. knew which machines had coin returns that had a tendency to hang up, and with a quick flick of my metal nail file, the jammed dime would roll out. On a real busy weekend, the coins would sometimes back up behind each other and it was like hitting a jack pot on a slot machine. Do you remember the peep show movies they had in the back of the arcade? My first glimpse of a naked woman came from a two frame scrap of 8mm film found on the work shop floor. Not much I know, but when you are 8 or 9, it doesn’t take much. My favorite ride was the Tunnel of Fun (Old Mill). I can still recall with great detail the sounds of the boat hitting the walls as it went through, and the dank and musty smell of the dark tunnel. I never did get the chance to go through with a girl though. My best friend Harvey Lamm (who lived on Seaview Ave) and I, would sometimes get out of the boat and walk along the narrow ledge. One time I slipped and fell in the water and couldn’t catch up to the boat. I came wading out of the tunnel, expecting to get royally chewed out by the operator, who I knew well. He looked at me and just started laughing. Word did eventually get back to my Grandmother, and I was banished from the park for a week. Sheer torture! On a sadder note, some years later, Harvey, then a park employee, was thrown from the roller coaster and killed. Always the show off, he had been standing up, and lost his balance on the way down the second hill. I worked at the park officially when I turned 16. y first job was manning the pooper scooper at the petting zoo. Later I worked at the main restaurant by the front gate (Sip & Bite) and also spent many hours as the scissor person in the bargain Day Booth, cutting off the excess string after the wrist bands were put on. I was hoping to attend the auction when they sold off items from the park, but I had just started a new job and couldn’t get off. I was cited for trespassing shortly after it’s closing when, while feeling no pain, climbed the fence I climbed the fence late one Saturday night in search of something, anything to remember her by. I was in possession of a ride sign from the Trabant that I pulled off a fence, and a few drink cups with the OV logo that were blowing down the boardwalk, when I was confronted by the night watchman and his dog. I told him my story but he was a real hard nose, (as was the dog) and they turned me over to the city police. I was able to go back and retrieve a board from the roller coaster that I had thrown over the fence earlier, but after years of cutting off pieces for friends, it was accidentally trashed during a move. I have acquired about 50 postcards and a few trinkets related to the old gal thanks to eBay. I sure miss the place, to tears sometimes, and have developed a new passion for the area since learning of it’s splendid past through the postcards. If I had to pick one memory of OV as my favorite, it would be lying in my bed and listening to the sounds of the park. The clikitty clack of the coaster’s lift chain, people screaming on the way down the first hill, and top 40 hits blaring from the dance hall’s outside speaker, which came pouring through my bedroom window every evening. Joe Leatherman is the vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Ocean View Station Museum and our expert on the Ocean View Amusement Park.
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