Ethnography of a Staff at Camden Park Research Assignment

Ethnography of a Staff at Camden Park
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Ethnography of a Staff at Camden Park
Denis recently reminded me of my favorite game that we used to enjoy during childhood years. Even though I usually felt disappointed during boat riding when young, I never gave up going to Peddler's Village during weekends and holidays. Denis used to call me captain because I never let him sit on the captain's couch on the little boat. In addition, I loved to accompany my dad to the amusement park at the especially on weekends and paid close attention to how he managed the different activities in Peddler's village. Sometimes he could assign me some easy chores such as washing park seats, clean the ground around the swimming pool among others. Eventually, I developed an interest in becoming amusement park manager in the future. One afternoon at the age of 15 years, I sneaked to the park and found Pete one of the staff conducting first aid to a child who slipped from a ridge runner though was not seriously hurt. I was fond of him so he never hesitated to assign me some complex activities of which we did together. He even offered to train me on some of the maintenance skills that I need to know besides demonstrating different first aid techniques to me. Later, on my passion as a manager of amusement park became a reality and that is the main reason for writing this ethnography.
In May last year, I requested the management of Camden Park to be a staff at the premise for a weekend during peak seasons. Even though the management notified me on the long list of the already booked months, I was glad to get an opportunity to volunteer for one day on July 6th, 2016.
Camden Park is the nearest amusement facility from our home which is about 300 miles. I used to visit the amusement park with my father who was a staff every weekend at my childhood age, now I am one of the students who study ecotourism and has volunteered to exercise some of the management skills that I have learned regarding amusement parks (Dickinson & Summer-Ramirez, 2016).
Camden Amusement Park covers 26 acres of land found near Huntington, West Virginia. It was founded in 1902 a spot for picnics by the Camden Interstate Railway Company. In most cases, riders who used to travel between Huntington and other cities would have a stop for the change of lines and soon grew due to other roadside attractions. Currently, it is the most valued amusement park in West Virginia and is a home for over thirty rides and other attractions including the wooden roller coaster, vintage rides, and the Big Dipper. Numerous recreational facilities have been added including swimming pool, roller rink, and a small zoo (Dickinson & Summer-Ramirez, 2016).
In addition, the different events that are hosted in the park include live musical performances especially on hot summer nights, "Children's Festival, "Coca-Cola Days" as well as the "Halloween Spectacular". On the same note, other events include paratrooper, Scrambler, the Whip, Tilt-A-Whirl and swan-shaped pedal boats for boat riding. The park usually operates in six days a week with peak periods from late May to early August and for special dates in September and October (Moutinho, 1988). Initially, I had...