Grab your ticket and step into Playland: Greetings From Ocean City, Maryland, a love letter to a time and place that no longer exist.

The long-lost Playland Amusement Park comes back to life in Earl Shores’ new Ocean City story. All the sights, sounds, and smells of this defunct, yet still beloved Eastern Shore landmark can be experienced in this captivating on-the-ground account of the park’s final summer.

Want to take a last ride on the Hurricane, the only wooden roller coaster ever to exist in Ocean City? Or sit next to your wide-eyed child as they “drive” the spoke-wheeled Antique Cars? Spin majestically into the bayside night air on the Airborne ride? Hit the green gas pedal and throttle out onto “Ocean City’s largest go-kart track?”

Then step into the pages of Playland: Greetings From Ocean City, Maryland and back to the summer of 1980 as Shores skillfully puts you to work in the park for its final summer season.

Praise For Playland

“Playland takes you back to a time when Ernie’s Donuts were always hot and delicious, the Admirals played at the Pier Ballroom, and a great amusement park existed on 65th Street. It’s a great beach read!”
– Hunter “Bunk” Mann, author, Vanishing Ocean City and Ghosts in the Surf (2019)

“Weaving two stories together, one from his childhood, the other as a young man working during the summer, Earl Shores brings Ocean City, Maryland to life, vividly, as it was during the 60s, 70s, and 80s.”
– Sandy Hurley, curator, Ocean City Maryland Life-Saving Station Museum

“Playland far exceeds all expectations by transporting readers to a simpler time in Ocean City history, and our society in general. All OCMD local residents and tourists alike will get a kick out of reminiscing while enjoying this truly great body of work.”
– Brandon Seidl, founder, Trimper’s Haunted House Online, co-founder, The Bill Tracy Project, co-author, Trimper’s Rides and Ocean City Oddities (2020)

“Most of us have a defining summer of our youth. Earl Shores take us back to his special summer in 1980 when he lived in the seaside resort of Ocean City, Maryland and worked as a ride operator at Playland, a long gone amusement park. It turned out that this would be the final summer that Playland operated and Shores takes us back to the park with his vividly descriptive style of storytelling. The rides, the co-workers and the customers provide a rich tapestry of a long gone place that provided so many memories and shaped a person’s life forever.”
– Jim Futrell, historian, National Amusement Park Historical Association

“Playland transports us back to a time when summers were magical and friendships were made and renewed year after year. The words put into motion an emotional ride that allows us to check-off a bucket list item that ceased to exist long ago. Read the book, close your eyes, and realize that ‘Playland’ still exists.”
– Rick Machado, Playland alumnus 1976-80