Jack and Kong in White Post, Virginia
Jack Kirby, 1923-2001: He Loved to Travel and Smile
by Doug Kirby
My father, John E. "Jack" Kirby, 77, passed away on March 25, 2001 at home. As far as I could tell, before he died he had been one of the happiest people on the planet. He loved to travel, loved to dance, loved to smile. Jack contributed photos and film clips to RoadsideAmerica.com from his vacation collection (sometimes without him even knowing!), spanning several decades of travel. Much of my own enthusiasm for American tourist attractions started with family cross-country odysseys masterminded by my dad.
The earliest records of Jack's travel mania are his 35mm slides and 16mm film reels from the mid-1950s, at places such as Parrot Jungle, Marineland, and the Desert of Maine (on his honeymoon with Marlene, my mom). His hand-cranked silent 16 frames/second documentation of Monkey Jungle's "Liberace of the Monkey World" and a Rebel-flag waving water-ski team at Cypress Gardens have proven to be valuable components of our knowledge of the period. And Jack's animated matchstick titles and reverse ocean wave special effects always amused us.
Corn Palace, 1967.
In the 1960s and '70s, as my parents raised five children in New Jersey, Jack planned and executed elaborate summer road trips. In one month-long journey, he carted the family through 21 states, pulling an Apache camp trailer behind a station wagon -- racking up a record five flat tires along the way. We visited the Dells; a progenitor to F.A.S.T. in Sparta, Wisconsin; the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD; Wall Drug; Devil's Tower, the Big Rock Candy Mountain, Route 66. Two hours were spent in Dealy Plaza in Dallas, retracing JFK's motorcade and pondering the sniper's vantage point.
Mr. Musselman, Gettysburg, PA, 1964.
For the record, Jack whisked us off to plenty of "normal" places -- National Parks, scenic vistas. It required only moderate back seat whining and pleading by my brothers and sisters to get him to stop at a Snake Ranch or dinosaur statue... He was always excited about what might be around the next bend or off the next exit.
Some of Jack's recordings leave puzzles we are still solving. We found a slide of him, family and a mysterious giant in a box of memorabilia a few months ago, location unknown. He couldn't identify it either (Turns out it is likely Fantasyland Park, near Gettysburg, PA, circa 1964).
Other bits of footage confirm the continuum of classic attractions. Jack's movie clip of a street corner Indian chief in Cherokee, NC, showed us one of Chief Henry's early competitors.
As an active Scout leader for many years, Jack organized novel expeditions that further distorted my view of what a "good" trip should be. Novice spelunkers, we crawled through and even slept in natural caves. We hiked the Appalachian Trail, Civil War and Revolutionary War Trails in the region. He introduced me and my pals to the Cold War via a tour of the local Nike missile base's control bunker (and the crew opened a live silo so we could examine a missile). God knows why, but out on Sandy Hook, they used to take us camping next to WWII-era disappearing gun bunkers -- the multiple underground corridors best explored in the middle of the night with highway flares, smoke bombs and M-80s...
Jack Kirby loads another roll of film somewhere in the bowels of Breathing Cave, Virginia, 1974.
In 1983, Jack wrapped up his career as a Westinghouse design engineer, and settled into a fun retirement. With children grown up and out on their own, Jack and Marlene did the world travel and Caribbean cruise circuit. Though for a time Jack lost touch with the US attraction landscape, he was always an enthusiastic booster of Ken, Mike and me and the Roadside America Project.
In 1996, Jack was up for an American road trip -- it was also an excuse to visit his grandkids in Huntsville, Alabama, and Little Rock, Arkansas. The two of us toured a Grand Loop o' Fun, via Dinosaur Land, the Meccas of Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, and twenty other attractions. It felt good to repay a small portion of the vacation debt of my youth. Jack loved it all, though he despaired for a while about how he overlooked a great attraction like Rock City on a family trip thirty years earlier.
Jack and Rocky, 1996.
I told him, it's okay Dad, I'll make sure the rest of the family gets to "See Rock City." You showed us more than we could have ever imagined.
