07-08-09

Current Word Count: Roller Disco Saturday Night, 168, 035 words

What I’m Reading Now: A History of the World in Six Glasses, by Tom Standage

Shawn flipped on the forecast early Sunday before we headed out the door to the gym. “Sunny all day, great!” he cheered. But I didn’t cheer.

“Oh, hell.” I pointed at Tuesday. The whole week was full of sun and partial clouds, except for Tuesday. “Thunderstorms. All day Tuesday.”

“What’s wrong with… Oh.”

“I’ll be right back!”

At once I ran to my computer and fired off an email to Mark. Every time I’ve been on a fun trip these last few months – New York, Orlando – it’s been marred by rain. I was not going to let this happen this time.

Mark wrote back in moments: some shuffling was necessary, but he was pretty sure he’d be able to move his day off to Monday. Monday, which, according to weather.com, was going to be sunny and breezy and beautiful.

In all: Six Flags, one; weather, zero. Precipitation, you can suck it!

Onto the fun-fair!

* * *

Mark’s big innovation last year was to hit the water park the moment it opened, and go to the regular park in the afternoon. Though skeptical last year, I was all but leaping into my swim trunks as soon as we hit Agawam this time. The logic of it all: the water parks fill up during the hot part of the afternoon. In the morning, people are far more focused on roller coasters. Mark has a logic brain.

After switching into our swimmies and removing our glasses, we made our vision-impaired and colorblind way toward the Cyclone, the big waterslide with the funnel that is without a doubt the best ride in the water park. “It’s a tradition to do this one first!” I shouted as we made our way up the nearly-empty steps.

“At this point, it’s a trend,” Mark corrected. “It takes three to make a tradition.”

“Yes, but it takes two to make a thing go right.”

In rapid succession, we took on the more conventional waterslides, cruised the Adventure River (which is less filled with adventure than high-pressure jets of water that seem to seek our your testicles and batter them; Adventure River is all about Bad Touch. Also, Adventure River is where Shawn lost his glasses years ago, and the attendant told him he had an encephalitic skull. Thanks, Cory.), and asked a park attendant where the “water coaster” was.

“Um. Water coaster?”

Mark jumped in. “It’s the one that goes up and down. You sit in a raft and it’s like a roller coaster with water?”

The park attendant, clearly baffled, pointed behind us. “Well, those are waterslides…”

“We’ll find it,” I said, and moved away before I slugged him. This actually happened last year, too, when we asked food service folks where the water coaster was, and they pretended to not understand English. Note: when we did find it – it’s called the Typhoon (why are all water park rides named after damaging weather conditions, by the by? I’m waiting for the Wrath of God Wave Pool) – the sign read as follows: Typhoon – An extreme water coaster that shoots it’s riders up and down on a wild whirlwind journey! Or something to that effect. Two things: one, the term “water coaster” is right there. And two: “it’s”? Really, Six Flags?

Midway through the day, we switched gears (and clothes) and headed to the dry park. Our first jaunt? The Thunderbolt, a classic wooden coaster I could stare at all day long. I can’t stress enough my love of stuff with a long history. The Thunderbolt has been at Six Flags (previously Riverside) since 1941, before my parents were born, when my grandparents were young. I can almost imagine them coming to Riverside on a cool summer night and climbing on board, my Grandma clutching my Grandpa’s hand on that first lift hill, and screaming on the first drop, screaming but loving it. I can see my parents, just out of high school in the early 1970s, so young and in love, sitting at the back, my Mom’s long hair streaming out behind her and my Dad, trying to be tough, throwing his hands in the air the whole way. I want to ride with Shawn in the front car, and kiss him near the top, and hear him laughing on that first drop, laughing and screaming all the way down, that smell of popcorn in the air and that sense of high excitement pulsing through us and the car and the rails. There’s a feeling you get on old coasters that you can’t get anywhere else, and I’ll never capture it in words … but I’m sure as hell going to keep trying.



Mark and I lucked out and got the front seat, our first coaster ride of the day, and man, do you have any idea how great it is to be riding up front with your buddy? I said it last year and I’ll say it again: roller coasters, especially the classics, are time machines. I never feel so young as when I’m up there with my friend and having so much fun I think I’m going to burst.



Awhile back, when the Six Flags change had first come to Riverside, I took a trip with a bunch of guys and they persuaded me, via peer pressure, to attempt two rides I absolutely didn’t want to go on: Superman: Ride of Steel, and Scream. Scream is one of those drop towers that launch up and then drop down and your legs are dangling like participles and you’re pretty sure you’re going to die. Superman; Ride of Steel is a crazy-ass megacoaster that goes up over 200 feet before plunging down even longer at a nearly 90-degree angle. And that’s just the first drop.

I vowed never to go on either ride again. I have been a coaster fanatic for two decades, but after doing Superman (as well as Millenium Force at Cedar Point), I swore off megacoasters and gigacoasters (quickly: megacoasters are over 200 feet, gigacoasters are over 300 feet, and stratacoasters are over 400 feet). This time, though, I decided to face the fear. Disney’s nearly perfect, but while I love their coasters, none of them are particularly terrifying. And who doesn’t need a good dose of terror in their day once in awhile? Plus, there’d been an overlay of Superman lately: it was now called Bizarro. I suppose painting your extant blue coaster purple is cheaper than constructing an all-new coaster, huh?

We didn’t even wait long; I’m still not sure if that’s good or bad. As we approached the loading platform, though, the ride stopped for “technical difficulties.” Those are words you don’t want to hear when you’re about to climb on a steel construction in a tiny car about to climb up over 200 feet. Still, things got moving in under five minutes and we were in.



My heart jackhammered in my chest. “This was a bad idea,” I said to Mark. I think I said it with a grin, but he looked a little concerned, just the same. We launched, climbing implacably toward the top. And climbing. And climbing. When I’m on a wooden coaster, I like to look down and see the coaster below me, anticipating the ride. This time, while I kept my eyes open the whole time, I stared at the tops of trees and the calm river down below, and tried to breathe normally. I thought: I just want the climbing to be over. When will the climbing be over? And then we tipped, so gently, tipped and sped, and oh mY GOD WE’RE GOING DOWN!!!

And then: oh, friends, then I remembered that I love this!

“HOO-RAW, MOTHERFUCKERS!!! I screamed, throwing my arms in the air and flashing devil-horns. “Holy shit, YES! YES! YES! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Mark seemed pretty thrilled, too, as evidenced by this picture:



It just kept going: we jumped aboard Scream with nary a hesitation, flying into the air and hanging there, suspended, with our feet dangling in midair. We were full stories above the Thunderbolt and I had a moment to love seeing it this high up before shooting, screaming back down to earth.

Our last ride of the night – after experiencing Bizarro and the Thunderbolt once more – was the Cyclone, which absolutely hurts to ride … but it’s so worth it. One of the biggest wooden coasters in the world, the Cyclone rises like a timber dinosaur into the darkening sky, cajoling, threatening, enticing. We rode that sucker twice, regretting it, cherishing it, and it’s like everything I love the most: this is something people do, this is something people have always done, and just for a fraction of a second, I am a part of that history. Just for a second, I am inside history, and I’m hollering my cry into the void, hollering into the night, hollering, oh, hollering the whole way down.

Kev