Busch Gardens of my youth

In a recent post, I mentioned that I was reading Last Call by Daniel Okrent to research Prohibition times.

In one of the early chapters, a lot of ink is spilled about Adolphus Busch, the founder of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company.  No surprise, he was virulently anti-Prohibition.

But personally, the name Busch conjures up a leafy place with a large lake and a boat ride from my childhood:  Busch Gardens.

I really don't remember much about it though.

So, I did what we all do nowadays when we want to know more on a subject, I looked it up on the world wide interweb.  And there is a lot of information and pictures on the interweb about the old Busch Gardens in Van Nuys.  A lot of people have a lot of information and they've put it all up.  If you want to know about Busch Gardens history, click here.  Or maybe you'd like to look at a bunch of old photos of the place.  There's even a blog about Disneyland tickets, but the blogger also writes about other amusement parks like Busch Gardens.  I'm not sure you would be interested unless you too spent time at Busch Gardens.

Looking at all these sites, though, I am struck by what must have been a major draw for my father.

Free beer.

Think about it, you take your kids to some place that they'll like with birds and trees and rides, but you get to have free beer in the bargain.  It's a win-win.

Now I know that there are still Busch Gardens amusement parks out there in the world.  And I am sure that they are cool places with animals and roller coasters, but I am positive there is no free beer.

Some small victory for the prohibitionists?