An impression and a memory

1) Impression: There's a kind of grouchy, 1950s father type, who sits in the basement and wears glasses and he's working on something scientific. He tries to make connections with wires and that sort of thing. His son sits on the floor of the basement and he (the son) watches him being all grouchy about it. And he's got a very sort of White Anglo Saxon Protestant work ethic. An "I must work to be a good person and I must be grouchy while I'm working or its not real work" attitude.

2)I have a memory of visiting a dusty playground at a Jellystone National Park somewhere in upstate NY (like around Albany, probably) when I was about six. I was rather surprised/horrified when I saw some other little girls on these small plastic toy horses on metal springs, tilting the horses back and forth, so that the noses of the horses touched the ground all the way. It seemed kind of dangerous and grotesque to do that to those toy horses. Later my friend and I ate some multicolored (probably red green and yellow) candy which was shaped like a folded up umbrella and I went on these tilting spring horses too, but, in truth, I didn't really like it and was always rather uneasy about it.

Memories of childhood playgrounds might be good to write about.