In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [40]
And, sure enough, a World’s Fair began to grow. It spread outward like a mushroom patch from the tiny fort, and grew and grew and grew. Month by month, year by year, great blue and yellow and orange buildings right out of the land of Oz blotted out the Lake, until the tiny fort disappeared behind them all. Mile after mile was covered with this fantasy, this wonderland, this land of real, genuine, absolute Magic.
And I lived in a land that was eminently, very very unmagical. The least magic of all neighbhorhoods, a pure Oatmeal neighborhood—lumpy Oatmeal. And so the idea and the vision of the World’s Fair began to be a true Fairyland. The Emerald City had come to the South Side.
It took hold of my imagination until there was room for nothing else, and I was not alone. All the newspapers ran stories, tremendous reams of copy, wondrous descriptions of what it was going to be like, this Shangri-La right there on the shores of Lake Michigan. And then the story began to spread about a special Kid thing that was going to be at the Fair. This Something grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me right into the vortex, and I will never forget it. It was a tremendous thing in my life. Treasure Island!
Treasure Island was a tiny World’s Fair within the World’s Fair. There was the Hall of Science, the Hall of Communications, the Hall of Man; all these great, wonderful halls that were dedicated to the proposition that Man was the most magnificent thing in the world, and that he was just beginning. A Century Of Progress! Over the horizon was even more magnificence and greatness, and in the middle of it all—Treasure Island!
The Tribune printed pictures of Treasure Island and told how it was going to be. I clipped them out and saved them, tons of them. One day I would be there myself.
This was a time in history before television, and kids didn’t go to the movies very much because movies cost money and over the land lay the Depression. It was not just another show in a succession of shows. It was Treasure Island!
Spring came, and the day approached when the Fair was to open. Already the flags were flying. The Avenue of Flags. We would drive past in the Oldsmobile and try to see through the modernistic fence, and we could catch glimpses of Martian landscapes and golden pagodas. It was a magnificent sight outlined against the blue water of the Lake.
During the Depression it rained a lot, and things were gray and there were a lot of fistfights, but then, suddenly, this!
One bright Sunday the Fair actually opened. There were speeches and parades, and I sat next to the radio and listened to everything that happened. The word was out that we would go “when the weather got warmer.” At least that was the explanation my brother and I got. No one talked to us much about money.
The Fair was all that anyone talked about for weeks, and a couple of my cousins had actually been there. It was impossible even to talk to them about it. They were speechless. They were like veterans of some indescribable war. They could understand each other, but we who hadn’t been there were on the outside.
I would ask: “How about Treasure Island? The Magic Mountain? How about it? What was it like?”
They would just look at each other. What can you say?
Our time finally came. I am in the Fair! I am looking at the flags, and I see the great Halls of Science. I am a tiny, tiny squirt, but it made a colossal impression on me, the first truly immense impression of my life.
Green, yellow, gold, orange buildings! The Skyride! The unreal Fantasy World’s Fair architecture. World’s Fair buildings have no relationship to real buildings. It was truly beyond all my expectations, whatever they were. It was the Emerald City. Nothing was real, nothing, not even the people. Everything was just swirling around me—lights and colors and sounds and funny, sweet food, and more excitement than I could stand. And then, Treasure Island!
And right in the middle of Treasure Island, the vortex, the center, and as far as I was concerned the reason for the entire World’s Fair—The Magic Mountain!