One man's pain from war
somehow got translated into this carousel.
With the decision to turn that pain
into happiness.
When you get on it
you ride it
you're part of it.
And then when you get off, you're transformed forever.
When I'm either resanding them, redoing them, fixing the crack
It's a continuation of our friendship.
I definitely feel like they're home.
Sometimes I feel like I'm giving them a haircut or something
or a massage.
But they do keep me company.
No offense to the dogs.
The motivation for the carousel goes way back
to when I was 18, 19 years old in Vietnam
in the Marine Corps
having a hard time of it like everybody else.
My sister had gotten correspondence from me
back in Texas.
Could tell that I was having a hard time of it.
And she sent me a music box.
I would close my eyes and I would think of a carousel
and a mountain meadow.
Just with kids playing around
just the opposite of war
where I was.
I think it helped me survive Vietnam
The carousel ended up in Nederland because
myself and my wife and kids ended up in Nederland
before I started carving the animals.
Well, it's based on a 1910 four row grand carousel.
It was made for an amusement park in Salt Lake City.
I heard about it and bought it
and brought it home to Colorado
and started carving new animals for it.
It took me about three to six months per animal
and it took me 26 years to finish the full carousel
It wasn't real good at first and then I just got
a little bit better with each animal.
It's a little different than other carousels
but it seems to fit in this small little mountain community
which is about an hour's drive from Denver.
And as you first come up through the canyons
the first thing you see is a big reservoir
with hills and mountains on both sides.
Practically speaking Nederland would be
the last place I would put a carousel. You feel l ike you're living right on the edge of wilderness as well.
We frequently have moose wander through town
but this is where it belonged
and we're glad its here.
And people come from all over the country to ride.
Anybody who meets Scott
who has ridden the carousel
is often fairly speechless.
The carousel grew from Scott's vision.
Scott's vision grew from horror.
And the desire to transcend horror
give something to the world to
balance that out a little bit.
It took me many years to right myself.
Sometimes it's even hard to say that because..
"Hey, why don't you get over it? It's been two decades."
Yeah, that's hard to do. So...it just is.
So I began to think back.
My mind was still on on creating
a carousel in a mountain meadow.
Wasn't really sure I could carve
I never trained with anybody.
So it was whether I could create
a piece of art that would speak to anybody.
I learned about each animal ahead of time
before I would try to carve it
and glean its importance to a culture
or to people, to the world.
All of a sudden, it was the animals
one at a time that helped me heal
as I needed to heal.
And that went on for 26 years
as I carved one animal at a time.
I think part of the wonder of it too
is he transmitted
his own sort of innocence.
They all had that look of acceptance
and wonder in their gaze. You know?
Whimsical.
That's funny that you say?
Yeah, whimsical.
Alright folks.
How's everybody doing? Great!
Do we have any first timers today at the carousel?
Oh, whoa, almost everybody.
I'm gonna grab your tickets and we'll spin ya.
You're not getting dizzy yet?
It is a very sacred place.
It's a place of healing.
It's a place of loving who we've lost together.
My connection with the carousel is
today is actually the seventh birthday
of my daughter who passed away.
He knew me while I was pregnant with her
and when my daughter died
he wanted to do something for me and her.
When Scott was making the koala
he asked if we would come up
and I brought some of my daughter's ashes
and I put some of her ashes in the compartment
in the koala.
Part of her literally is here all the time.
And so every year on her birthday today
we come up and that's our way of remembering her.
And we're here to celebrate her birthday too.
So special.
Should we sing happy birthday?
And for my children that are alive
they get a relationship with their sister
by that koala being there
because they don't get one
and she gets to live on. Her life is still continuing because of Scott's work.
Good job, good job.
All right, here we go.
Everybody looks to Scott
as if it's his carousel
but it's not anymore.
It's the community's carousel
and that's rightfully the way he wants it.
None of us have particular skills
in creating magnificent works of art and wonder.
But somehow in this little town
it all came together.
The carousel was such a refuge for me during the war.
But I really had no idea.
And I'm so pleased to see that it's a refuge for others.
It's almost come around full circle for me
to see how it's affected other people.
He's just a guy but what he's done was extraordinary.
It created wonder
and everybody who rode it felt
a little bit of the wonder.