Can’t Afford a Whole Carrousel? You Can Get a Leg Up on One from Welba Wilcox

There are so few carrousels left.

Despite that, carrousel horse builder Welba P. Wilcox is a busy man. Instead of carving horses or other animals for carrousels, he makes them so kids and adults can have their own private taste of the past.

“I guess you could say that 99% of everything I make goes into homes,” said Wilcox, a former truck driver, logger, farmer and auto mechanic who never had a wood-carving lesson. “I’ve always been good with my hands.”

He works at his own pace. “I have to get into the mood to work,” the mustachioed Wilcox said in his garage workshop where he sometimes puts in 16-hour days on a wood “creature,” as he calls the animals he carves. “But sometimes I don’t work at all.” He admitted he hasn’t had his car inside the garage for several years.

Wilcox is also a practical joker. “I don’t believe in a lot of things, and I don’t believe in reincarnation,” he said. “And I didn’t believe it in my other life either.” His house is somewhat of a museum, with several examples of his and other people’s carrousel work--including four horses, a deer, sea horse, mermaid, lion and Woody Woodpecker. He also has an old jukebox, pinball machine and jewelry that he makes.

“While collecting things just happens, carrousel horses are an addiction,” said Wilcox, who is active in the American Carrousel Assn. and National Carrousel Society. “And riding them on the carrousel heightens the addiction.”

The two finest carrousels in Southern California are at Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm, he said, but there are other excellent merry-go-rounds in Santa Monica and Riverside.

He said other people who become addicted to carrousel animals can cure themselves by spending $3,000, and up, for one of his creatures.

Most of his customers want horses because of the power the animal represents, he said, but the old carrousel horses cost much more because collectors in the 1970s bought up carrousels storage. Horses that once went for $50 now go for as much as $15,000, he said.

“I hope people who want a new creature aren’t in a hurry for them,” said Wilcox, who once won a full beard contest in an Oregon logging camp. While he can produce a wooden animal in a week or two, he sometimes takes a year to deliver an ornately finished product.

“That’s one of the business situations I have experienced,” he said. “I sometimes have what you would call a cash-flow problem.”

He temporarily cures that by selling his handmade jewelry at swap meets.

It was a tender moment on Sept. 1, 1985, when Ervin Kendziorski of Irvine and his girlfriend penned notes expressing their fondness for each other. The love messages were placed in an empty wine bottle they had saved from a restaurant on Catalina Island. They dropped the dark green wine bottle overboard from the ferry on their way back to Orange County.

Kendziorski, 27, a UC Irvine night student, also penned a note promising to send $20 to anyone who found the bottle and returned the love notes.

He got a letter back April 16 from Lany Cumpio, 19, of the Philippine Islands, 10,000 miles away. The letter said, “I know you don’t expect this. . . .” Kendziorski, true to his word, sent her the money.

But this is not a love story with a warm ending. Kendziorski not only dropped $20, but he and his girlfriend broke up. But he’s going to keep writing to Cumpio.

Get this. There’s going to be a “Cluck Like a Crazy Chicken” contest at the Orange County Fair on July 11 and 18, says spokeswoman Christeen Brunet. Contestants have to sing a song while clucking.

When National University hired Randy (Duke) Cunningham, 46, as dean of its flight school for its seven centers in Orange County, the school got a man with an extraordinary background.

He is the first American ace (five downed planes or more) in the Vietnam War, first American all-missile ace ever and only American to down three MIGs in one day. He flew more than 300 combat missions.

Cunningham, who has appeared on more than 230 radio and television programs, has been awarded the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars and the Purple Heart.

He also wrote a best-selling book which chronicles his battles with North Vietnamese MIGs.

Acknowledgments--Vivian Overturf, 17, of Huntington Beach, a junior at Oceanview High School, shot a two-round total of 150 to win the Los Angeles City Junior Girl’s Golf Tournament held at the Sepulveda Golf Complex. “Golf and school take up all of my time,” Overturf said.