The other day I was walking in the forest above the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve when my musings were disturbed by a raucous, almost hysterical laugh. For some reason the thought that flashed through my mind was, "My God, Laughing Sal!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxV_wjpUeGY
For many years Laughing Sal epitomized the spirit of San Francisco's Playland at the Beach, an amusement park whose history stretches back to the turn of the 19th Century. Take a look at San Francisco's Playland at the Beach: The Early Years http://catalog.plsinfo.org/record=b1970267~S1 , or check out a good video of the park's later years called Remembering Playland http://catalog.plsinfo.org/record=b1945145~S1. Today Sal resides down at Fisherman's Wharf in the Musee Mechanique http://www.museemechanique.org/. Stop by, throw a quarter in the slot and share a laugh. On the related topic, did you know that for many years the only place that you could get one of San Francisco's unique ice cream sandwiches, It's It, was Playland.