rollercoaster
There was a discussion earlier on a message board about people's favorite rollercoasters, then and now.
I haven't been on one in ages but it got me thinking about a particular childhood memory and the strangest, wildest, scariest rollercoaster ride I'd ever been on.
It was in Louisiana when I was about ten. Amusement parks back then would spring up in some empty field for a week or so and then disappear as quickly as they had appeared. They were hardly comparable to the Disney-type superparks we have now... these were fly-by-night operations, usually with an arcade of sorts, a ferris wheel, various carnival-type booths and stands, and of course some kind of rollercoaster. Rickety, wooden rollercoasters.
And this one that I remember had to be the most rickety, wooden-est rollercoaster of all time. I don't recall all the details... Jan and Kathy and I had been out with some of our cousins and it was late at night (for me anyway). I distinctly remember it was past ten and we were on our way home from somewhere and decided to make a late night stop at the amusement park. That in itself was kind of unusual and the fact we decided to take a ride on the rollercoaster even more so.
There were no bars or seat belts on this thing. You know the log ride at Six Flags where you would just straddle a bench-type seat? That's how this was. And we just grabbed what we could and held on for dear life.
How no one ever just went flying off of this thing, I don't know, but it was without a doubt the scariest damn ride I ever went on in my life. No, there was no loop de loop (I guess that would have been tempting fate a bit too much) but it was really fast and I thought more than once my young life would end any second. Just get me home, I thought, and I'll never complain about coming to Louisiana again. The fact that it was pitch black outside made the experience even more intense.
I wonder if Jan and Kathy remember this. Obviously, it was pre-Joe. But it's something that has stayed with me all these years and all this talk of rollercoasters today triggered it once again.
I haven't been on one in ages but it got me thinking about a particular childhood memory and the strangest, wildest, scariest rollercoaster ride I'd ever been on.
It was in Louisiana when I was about ten. Amusement parks back then would spring up in some empty field for a week or so and then disappear as quickly as they had appeared. They were hardly comparable to the Disney-type superparks we have now... these were fly-by-night operations, usually with an arcade of sorts, a ferris wheel, various carnival-type booths and stands, and of course some kind of rollercoaster. Rickety, wooden rollercoasters.
And this one that I remember had to be the most rickety, wooden-est rollercoaster of all time. I don't recall all the details... Jan and Kathy and I had been out with some of our cousins and it was late at night (for me anyway). I distinctly remember it was past ten and we were on our way home from somewhere and decided to make a late night stop at the amusement park. That in itself was kind of unusual and the fact we decided to take a ride on the rollercoaster even more so.
There were no bars or seat belts on this thing. You know the log ride at Six Flags where you would just straddle a bench-type seat? That's how this was. And we just grabbed what we could and held on for dear life.
How no one ever just went flying off of this thing, I don't know, but it was without a doubt the scariest damn ride I ever went on in my life. No, there was no loop de loop (I guess that would have been tempting fate a bit too much) but it was really fast and I thought more than once my young life would end any second. Just get me home, I thought, and I'll never complain about coming to Louisiana again. The fact that it was pitch black outside made the experience even more intense.
I wonder if Jan and Kathy remember this. Obviously, it was pre-Joe. But it's something that has stayed with me all these years and all this talk of rollercoasters today triggered it once again.
posted by gbj at 8:37 PM
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