News that the Steel Pier's famous/infamous diving horse shows won't be brought back from the dead has refreshed my Boardwalk memories.
In the Atlantic City of the late 1970s, what was left of the past was awaiting demolition.
But as venerable hotels fell and casinos rose, my friends and I -- refugees from Syracuse, NY -- walked the boards in search of artifacts.
We discovered Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow.
And of course, the Diving Horse.
We saw it once, on a ferociously hot Saturday afternoon.
It was a desultory display of vintage seaside vaudeville, lacking only some bathing beauties and a barker with a megaphone.
Amid a sad handful of people who didn't seem to share our post-graduate sense of irony, we listened to some sort of recorded fanfare.
The horse appeared on a platform.
And toppled into a tank of water.
We left wishing we'd been able to watch Tony instead.
But don't take my word for it; take a look at the video below. (The horse shows up about 70 seconds in).