"Inspiration House"

 Photos:  Top - Ghost Town, Center - Inspiration House,  Bottom - "Little Chapel on the Lake"

This is where I spent a good deal of time..."The Inspiration House," my family's store at Knott's Berry Farm.  If you headed left, you'd wind up at the Indian Village; if you turned right, you'd stumble right into the "Little Chapel on the Lake," and on to Ghost Town. We had really good foot traffic, and if you stood at the right spot at the counter, you could catch sight of the people coming and going over the bridge. 

One of my favorite images is of a very large woman (I mean very large...) walking across the bridge away from me giving me a view of her rather large derriere.  Mind you, this was back in the late sixties when everyone embroidered everything imaginable.  She was wearing humongous bell bottomed pants on which was embroidered the body of a butterfly right up the crack of her jeans (didn't quite know how else to describe this!); on each butt cheek of her pants was embroidered a butterfly wing in outrageously bright colors.  So - if you'll hang on here with me - when she walked it was like a giant "Mothra" was on the hunt for prey!  Those wings really had to do some flapping to get over that bridge....

When I was young, I looked much older than my age.  Too bad it doesn't work in reverse, now that I'm an old crone!  Anyway, when I was twelve, my folks taught me how to make change the hard way - you know, count it back!  They gave me some lessons in customer service (meaning behave or else!) and let me wait on people.  Thus began my career. 

I remember one night a woman came running in screaming, "There's a hippopotamus outside!!!"  My dad and I ran out to see what the heck she was talking about!  We almost tripped over a tapir, which had gotten loose from "Old MacDonald's Farm."  How do you herd a tapir?  We called security and they in turn called the people at the animal farm to come get their "hippo."

There is a lot more - the monkey that got loose, the hair-puller, the mother hen.  To be continued....