I
believe it was Andy Warhol who claimed that every person would be famous for
fifteen minutes. Which may be true, on average. But what I am finding is that
the fifteen minutes doesn't necessarily all come at once. This photograph appeared
in the August 5, 2002 issue of Amusement Business, on Page 5, as an illustration
for a story about Kennywood Park's promotion for the 75th birthday of the Racer
and Turtle on July 21, 2002.
Now, if you have been reading carefully through the Trip Report Archive on my web site you might realize that I was at Kennywood on July 21, 2002. As a matter of fact, that photograph was taken during the special drawing held late in the day...a drawing of those tickets they were handing out to anybody who rode the Racer or the Turtle during the day, for whatever stuff park PR Director Mary Lou Rosemeyer was able to dig out of the closets on short notice for a giveaway.
Well,
I didn't win anything in the drawing. But if you take a closer look at that
photograph, it turns out that I didn't exactly come up empty, either. See that
spot of yellow highlighting? Here's a look at that spot close-up:
All those people standing there on the midway, and there's one person who, by some strange coincidence, happens to be looking towards the camera. Yup, that's me with the beard, standing right next to Scott Short, the (75-inch) tall guy just to the right of me (my left, actually).
Eventually I'll add to this page and you can see my appearances on the Discovery Channel, riding behind Sean Flaharty on Millennium Force. Well, hey, you can see my beard, anyway...
--Dave "Hey! I got my picture in AB!" Althoff, Jr