The Banning Playland Stitches

In the mid-1980s, long-distance road trips across Interstate 10 were tests of family endurance. Packed into the Dodge passenger van for the seven-hour haul between Los Angeles and Chandler, the Goodman children relied on cassette tapes, license plate games, and the promise of fast-food stops to break up the monotonous desert pavement.

In mid-October 1986, the family had just wrapped up a whirlwind weekend at Disneyland. Dad had initially debated whether three-year-old Dana was old enough for the trip. Toddler Mikey stayed behind in Chandler with family friends Debbie and Missy Sisk, but Dad insisted on bringing Dana along. "Even little Dana wanted to stay with Debbie," Dad recorded, "but I could not see going to Disneyland without our almost three-year-old girl, so we talked her into coming."

The weekend was an unqualified success. On Sunday, October 12, the family stayed inside Disneyland from 10:00 AM until past midnight, dining at the Blue Bayou next to the Pirates of the Caribbean waters and riding Fantasyland attractions late into the night. Both little ones held out awake until the park finally emptied at 00:15.

On Monday, October 13, the family began the long journey home to Arizona. Driving eastward out of the Los Angeles basin, Interstate 10 climbs into the San Gorgonio Pass, a wind-swept corridor wedged between the San Bernardino Mountains to the north and Mount San Jacinto to the south. Banning sat directly in the pass along West Ramsey Street, serving as the customary oasis where desert travelers stretched their legs and bought meals before the long, barren descent toward Indio and Blythe.

The family pulled into the Banning McDonald's. During that era, the location featured an expansive outdoor "Playland" packed with heavy commercial steel equipment. Children scrambled up the barred tower of Officer Big Mac, hurtled down steep metal spiral slides that baked under the California sun, and rocked on rigid spring riders shaped like hamburgers and fries.

For energetic kids cooped up in the van for hours, the playground offered instant liberation. But toddler play on heavy commercial steel carried real hazards. While scrambling through the play area, Dana took a hard fall and struck the equipment, slicing her forehead open right below the hairline.

Head lacerations bleed heavily, and the sight of blood instantly changed the tone of the road trip. As a practicing obstetrician and gynecologic surgeon, Dad spent his professional life repairing tissue and obsessing over clean healing. On his only daughter, a deep facial laceration was a critical concern.

The incident also fulfilled an unintentional family prophecy. Just seven weeks earlier, on August 26, eleven-year-old Nicky had wiped out on five-year-old Matthias's Rolling Racer scooter on the driveway, splitting his chin open. After Uncle James Allison stitched Nicky up at his clinic that evening, Dad bought Nicky a Dairy Queen Blizzard, an indulgence that Dad noted had "engendered much speculation about which of the kids would need stitches next."

Dana had unexpectedly claimed that title.

Dad recognized that the cut required immediate surgical closure under proper lighting to prevent a permanent facial scar. Butterfly bandages were insufficient. The family detoured off the highway to the nearest emergency facility in town, San Gorgonio Pass Memorial Hospital on North Highland Springs Avenue.

While Mom and Dad brought a terrified, crying Dana into the treatment room so the attending ER physician could numb the wound and place the fine sutures, the rest of the siblings waited outside. Binki, Peter, Nicky, and Matthias sat in the waiting room and out in the parked van, watching the small-town hospital routine while minutes dragged into hours.

When Dana finally emerged, her forehead was bandaged and the laceration cleanly closed. The family piled back into the van, comforted their brave little sister, and set out across the desert night toward Chandler, adding another roadside chapter to the Goodman travel annals.