Real-Life Story #2 ("Winning a Panda @Riverview Amusement Park (Chicago, 1955).

Another real-life story, this one about how I threw two perfect "strikes" to win a $25 panda, age 11. SEE my book; "OTHER LIVES, BENDS IN THE ROAD, AND WHAT IFs," https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLJR2KY1

Real Panda Story
As a young kid I had visited the Marshall Fields and Company department store in downtown Chicago several times––I bought my first baseball mitt there; a leather Raleigh, right-hander, shortstop edition, saving up for many months to collect the twelve dollars it cost. This incident, about the panda, had to have occurred just a couple years earlier, when I was 10-11, in any case way before my family moved to the West Coast in 1956.

Anyway, while in the department store at some point I had noticed a very large panda I wanted, which cost all of $25. With inflation rates up to present day, 2023, the present cost would be close to $270. So that stuffed toy was an extremely expensive item for a young child like me to contemplate, let alone acquire.

The next time I laid eyes on that large-sized panda was at the Riverview Amusement Park, way past Chicago’s downtown “Loop” area. I can’t remember who took me there, maybe on a school trip or a friend’s birthday outing, but in any case I was impressed to see it again, and watched as adults paid 50 cents for two hardballs they’d throw––the panda could be won by just knocking two fur-covered “cats” off a shelf (much harder than it looked!).

That glimpse of the game at that concession stand imprinted the idea of acquiring it firmly in my brain. In the privacy of my room on the South Side of Chicago, in my parent’s house on Kimbark Avenue, just about a mile from the 47th Street Illinois Central (IC) train station, I began to form a plan to win the huge toy.

I decided to try and travel back there, figuring that if I brought much of my savings––up to $10 or so––I could try my luck at winning. Somehow, I believed that I could throw those two balls accurately enough, knock the furry sticks off the rail after a few tries. I wasn’t exactly caught up in an over-confident mood, more like an obsession and wishful thinking. But I didn’t really take the odds of failing into account.

Beyond my knowledge, the figures I had to topple were so well-designed that the game booth rarely lost a panda to the “marks” who tried to impress their girlfriends with their ball-throwing. The trick of an arcade––not losing any prizes––was that the fur stick-figure cats on the rails that the players saw were neatly covered with a disarming furry outer surface. You had to throw two perfect balls, to precisely strike the very narrow rod inside the fuzzy cats.

And the base of each cat was enclosed somewhat tightly in the high ridge that ran along the rail. If the ball made contact too low on the rod you might jiggle the cat a bit, but it wouldn’t fall. “The sweet spot” was only a tiny portion of what appeared to be an easy target. Like hitting a one-inch by one-half-- inch spot, with two balls, twice in a row, from a good distance away. Customers saw maybe ten pairs of cats available to target, and stood a good fifteen feet or more feet back to throw. Hard pitches from a variety of older kids and adults would rarely deliver a prize-winning moment. That’s the game I decided to play.

As a dyslexic kid––I wasn’t identified as such back then (in 1953)––I had a somewhat unique approach to spending my days alone. All my mother knew was that I “went out to play,” and returned before dark. No one was aware that I occasionally went all the way to downtown Chicago, eight miles away by the IC trains (if I had a coin for traveling each direction), to see a movie.

I would begin my trip by first walking the four blocks from my house to 47th, then right about five or six blocks more to the train station, pay my 25 cents for the eight-mile ride to the Loop, and spend another 50-cents to see a film. Sometimes, I even treated myself to a hamburger and coke (and additional $1.25) at a cafe near the State or Chicago theaters. I’ll call them “movie palaces” because they were HUGE, especially to a young kid like me. The balconies where I liked to sit were incredibly vast.

At any rate, I already had those kinds of completely unmonitored excursions under my belt. Call them secret if you like, because since I didn’t involve any friends I could just travel anywhere I wanted, if I got back before 5PM. And it never occurred to me that I was doing something special or wrong. It had none of that kind of charge for me. I just knew how to enjoy movies, and how to travel to see them.

So when the day arrived, the one when I decided to go and try to win my panda, I stuffed all my allowance and Christmas money––around $10 in coins and dollars––into my pockets, along with some quarters for the train, and walked my usual route to the IC. I always enjoyed riding in the lead car, with the wind washing across my face through the wide-open front, only a thick chain across the opening there as security (cigar smokers usually filled the small space, standing all around behind me).

Arriving in the Loop, I went to a nearby bus stop and asked the driver how to get to Riverview Park. He told me to get aboard, and handed me a transfer slip, saying he’d let me know when to get off, when to transfer to a second bus. The full bus journey was something like riding the first 100 blocks, then taking bus #2 another two hundred more. I’m guessing here, but whatever it was it took a good bit of bus-riding to finally arrive at the park.

Once at the familiar entrance to Riverview, I retraced the steps I’d learned from the birthday party, and was soon standing right in front of the “panda” arcade booth. Two big pandas hung prominently on the wall to entice people to try their luck. Two balls for 50-cents.

After watching several adults try and fail to win anything I plunked down my first half-dollar. There was no initial success, but throw after throw I adjusted my aim, as the half-dollars disappeared. Five more paid tries went by (two balls for each half-dollar) as I slowly understood what it took to knock those cats off their shelves. I became aware that hitting too low didn’t work, so I threw higher. When I finally hit a cat in the head it tumbled off. Now I just had to do that twice in a row.

I may be wrong about how much I spent that day, but I had decided to go for broke in any case. When I got an occasional cat to fall I could hear people somewhere behind me clapping or cheering. But I didn’t look back. The little kid keeps throwing balls, I believe I heard someone exclaim.

With each new throw, and analyzing the results, I improved my results. I honed in on my targets and honed my accuracy, and finally came up with the two perfect strikes, both cats toppling off their perches. Maybe the crowd reacted, but I don’t remember hearing anything. I just have a clear picture of the booth guy handing me the immense stuffed animal––just about half of my size––and me having trouble getting my arms in a good grip before heading back to the bus.

I can now only imagine what people thought, as they watched a little kid struggle along with that gigantic toy. Almost Candid Camera-worthy. At any rate, the buses and a train got me back to the South Side, and all I had to do was traverse a short distance to my house. Finally I got it inside and set it down on my bed, and my sister immediately gushed over it. She could barely contain herself, because she had also wanted it ferociously when we were in Marshal Fields. I guess I let her hold it, cuddle it, and she was in heaven. Finally, I broke down and decided to sell it to her. I had spent maybe as much as $7 to win it, between $7-10 anyway, because I remember that I had 16 half- dollar coins in my collection, and needed some cash for bus and train. So what to charge for it?

Since the department store price was $25, I figured that $12 was fair. She would get it for half price and I would get all my savings back plus a few extra dollars to re-buy half-dollar coins for my collection. She agreed whole-heartedly, paid me with her dollar bills, picked it up and scurried off to enjoy it in her own bedroom. I guess I missed it, but not as much as she seemed to need it, and I needed money to buy a delicious-smelling new leather baseball glove I had tried on at the same store. I planned to go there and get it soon. But within the next hour or two my parents––mainly my father I think––got wind of the panda deal, and they got all bent out of shape.

“How dare you try to make money off your sister?”

“That’s not what a good brother does.”

“It would be nice if you just gave her the panda.”

“Don’t you want to be a nice brother?”

“You need to give her money back.”

I was hit squarely with all that flack, all the kind of family pressure they could muster. I was not then capable of verbally explaining my side, how I had spent all my money on it, how I had traveled the many miles to get it (secretly, they would have said). So I gave my sister the free panda, and had to begin saving up allowances all over again, certain that I would never again try to make a profit off anything, from anyone, in the future.

Their castigating had pretty well cured me of desiring the “life of sales.” No used-car salesman’s job for me. I would go on to make movies at “used-car prices” instead.