Two readers responded to our call for memories of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Giant Dipper, which is 100 years old this year.
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Joanne Chamberlin writes from Scotts Valley: It was the summer of 1976. I had just hitchhiked to California from Toronto after university, and landed in Santa Cruz.
Joanne Chamberlin
My new church friends took me to the Boardwalk and I ended up on the Giant Dipper with an ex gang member from San Jose.
He shared with me what his initiation rites had been; I had never heard of such despicable things and should have been terrified of the guy- he sure looked tough!
But as we slowly approached the top of the ride, he suddenly started crying and screaming blue murder: Mama! Mama! and was determined to climb out of his seat!
I had to use all my strength to pull him back down and hold him there as best I could for the very long rest of the ride.
I’ve never gone back on the Giant Dipper in 48 years of living in Santa Cruz County. That was more than enough!
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Bruce Holloway of Boulder Creek writes: I like the fried artichokes better than the Giant Dipper, but my memory is that in one of the opening scenes of The Lost Boys (1986), the vampires swoop down and carry off a couple of kids in the back seat of the roller coaster as it goes over the top between the Bear Flag and the Stars and Stripes.
There’s another scene in which the vampires rip the roof off an old Dodge and grab a couple of kids making out in the back seat.
The movie currently includes only the scene with the Dodge and not the one where the kids get plucked off the Giant Dipper.
