The Center of the Action

What I Did on my Summer Vacation, or, Days in Rodanthe

2011-07-10T14:59:00.001-04:00

I spent the last week on Hatteras Island, North Carolina. On the way to the rental house, I passed through a town called Rodanthe, setting of a Nicholas Sparks novel. I have not read "Nights in Rodanthe," nor have I seen the Richard Gere/Diane Lane-starring film adaption, but I did stop to take pictures of what, to me, was the main draw of the town- Waterfall Action Park.

It looks as if it's been abandoned for years and they barely have a web site (which dubiously claims the "Largest Amusement Park in North Carolina" crown). If these message boards are to be believed, the park was open as late as last year. It seems to have been a family business, which went into decline when the patriarch passed away.

Here's an aerial view, taken from their site. There was no corresponding legend, but you can see the bungee tour, water slides, mini golf courses, etc. And a HUGE house nestled between one of the tracks and Pamlico Sound.

Let's take a look, in slideshow form, at what the 2009 edition of the Insider's Guide to the Outer Banks called "a palm-tree lined playground" and a "wonderland."

I wish I had taken more photos, or actual video, but I was afraid of contracting tetanus or West Nile. Plus, there were some trailers scattered about the property which were undoubtedly filled with mutant carnies plotting to kidnap me. Safety first, right?

Two Amazing Videos of Abandoned Parks

2011-07-10T10:14:00.001-04:00

These two videos deserve more prominent placement than they'll get in the larger post I'm working on. The first has been circulating for awhile now, but it's well worth watching again.

Six Flags over New Orleans never reopened after Hurricane Katrina:

Via Gawker, Joyland in Wichita, Kansas, which closed in 2004:

No Joy from Mike Petty on Vimeo.

Amazing.

Park Talk on the Best Show

2011-03-30T23:28:00.004-04:00

Oh, hey there! Last night, I was listening to The Best Show on WFMU, as is my Tuesday night tradition. One of Tom's callers mentioned the Park and I called in to offer my expert opinion. You can listen here. The call starts at about the 1:45 mark, but you owe it to yourself to listen to the entire three hour show, because this was a particularly good installment of what is always three of my favorite hours of the week.

The City That's Running Wild

2010-05-30T18:49:00.002-04:00

While the Park may only live on in sanitized form, another Sussex County institution perseveres. I am referring, of course, to Wild West City. If you grew up in or around New Jersey, I'm sure you remember the Uncle Floyd-starring commercial:

Yeah, you're going to have that stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Sorry about that!

Meet the New Boss.

2010-05-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

Same as the old boss.

Mountain Creek resort in N.J. sold to developer Gene Mulvihill

Showdown at the Transmobile

2010-05-19T14:49:00.003-04:00

Very few perks to working the Transmobile. It was the ride of the lazy, the lame, and often, the drunk. (The fact that it was maintained by the stoned should be of no surprise to anyone.) It was simply a slow, one-way trip to the other side of the park. Sideways. No one was ever happy to ride the Trans.

We ran into problems when people tried to make their own fun. Let's stand up and surf our way across the park! So what if we're 12 feet above the concrete path? Or, Let's pull on the brake halfway up the hill to give our buddies in the next car a chance to catch up! (And then what? Were they planning to hold hands?) What they didn't realize was that pulling on the brake caused the sad little car to lose all momentum and break down-- shutting the ride down for 40 minutes while we waited for the techs to stumble out of their smoke-filled shack to climb a pole and work their magic. Cheech and Chong repair machinery. Hang tight!

One of my jobs at mid-station (which wasn't actually a stop at all) was to yank the offenders off the ride and mark their wristbands so they couldn't ride again. That'll show you! No more riding slow and sideways for the rest of the day!

I got to the point where I could anticipate trouble. It sounds awful, but it was a bit of racial profiling. Black guys would just chill and look as cool as was possible riding sideways in an orange tram. Latinas would laugh and pretend they were on a scary roller-coaster. Rowdy white frat boys were generally a problem. They’d rock the car, give each other noogies, or whatever guys do when they’re pretending not to be gay, and call out obscenities to any girls that had the misfortune to walk underneath them. I’d yank them off the car, write on their wristbands, and decline their invitations to Staten Island. Then I’d go about my day.

The worst patrons were, without a doubt, the white women. (I can say this because I am a white woman.) White women, very often, weren’t in a good mood, didn’t want to be in the park in the first place, and didn’t believe that the rules applied to them.

Which leads me to my showdown. The number one rule of the Transmobile was that it was a ONE-WAY ride. This is important, as it would get very congested at the end of the day when people needed to get to the side of the park where they left their cars. It was always crowded on the Motor World side, because after a long, hot day, people didn’t want to climb a massive hill in order to go home.

It was the end of another scorcher and the air hadn’t yet cooled enough to render my sweat-soaked uniform shirt a comfortable clammy. I was pushing buttons at the Motor World Trans when the phone rang. It was Jen.

“Just so you know, the lady in the Sea World t-shirt in Car 14 was specifically told that this was a one-way ride, so don’t let her try anything,” Jen warned. “She’s going to try to ride round trip, and that’s just not fair.”

Damn straight, it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t going to happen. My line was absolutely mobbed with exhausted, sunburned, and dehydrated New Yorkers, and I wasn’t about to let this lady jump the line, and have them lynch me. Besides, I had a sense of justice. I would handle this calmly, I thought to myself. I’m a rational person.

Then Car 14 rolled into the station, and there she was, already glaring at me. I approached Shamu Lady and lifted her safety bar.

“You can put that bar back down, girlie, because I’m riding back up.” Girlie? Girlie?

“Ma’am, this is a one-way ride. You were told so at the top,” I responded in my best my-parents-raised-me-to-be-polite voice. The crowd, lined up behind me, began to quiet down to listen to our exchange.

“I don’t care what you say. I’m not getting off this ride!” And she folded her arms over the image of the smiling dolphin.

The polite me vanished and was instantly replaced by someone who sassed, “And I don’t care what you say, lady, but I am not pushing this button!”

I heard a woman in the crowd behind me whisper, “Oh, no, she DI-int!”

“And,” I continued, “I don’t think all these people, who having being waiting on line for a long time, would appreciate you cutting in front of them! So I’m not pushing any buttons until you get off this ride.”

Then I folded my arms and stared at her. She didn’t move. I was nervous, but made myself look pissed off instead. I’m not a confrontational person. I started to worry, What if she doesn’t get up? Then what?

But the crowd was with me. They had my back.

“C’mon, lady! We’ve been waiting!”
“That’s not cool, yo!”
“Get off! Wait your turn like everybody else!”

They grumbled and hollered until finally, she stood up, and exited the station. I had won the standoff. It was silent. I slowly turned to face the crowd, paused for a second, and raised my arms above my head like Rocky. Victory! The crowd erupted into cheers! Yeah, girl! I felt amazing. I was a peon in a soul-crushing uniform, but I was not without grit.

“Next four people!” I called. “Next four people, step up! Have a safe trip home!”

One Summer At The Speedboats

2010-05-13T17:36:00.009-04:00

You know what we don't speak of enough? (Besides ANYTHING, as the blog's been dormant since September?) Motor World. Please enjoy this dispatch from the Swamps of Jersey sent in by our good friend Stacy.

My time at the park spanned 7+ years. In the early years I worked in the retail department (where my friendship with Melissa blossomed). The later years were spent as the “Office Bitch” in Alpine Center, but somewhere in between, I worked as a ride attendant at the Speedboats in Motor World.

I think Tom said it best when he likened Motor World to Dante's circles of Hell. On most days it was unbearably hot; the essence of two stroke oil and stagnant water filled the air at the Speedboats dock. The ride consisted of a pond, or glorified swamp, with a small island in the middle. Single passenger boats, about the size of a bath tub, would be driven in circles around the island. Oddly enough, I sincerely liked working there.

We wore Water World uniforms which consisted of a transparent red bathing suit, tank top that read “GUARD” and terrible polyester shorts that caused a chronic wedgie unless worn extremely low on the hips. The “GUARD” tanks gave park patrons a false sense of security given that I probably couldn't save a rat drowning in a bucket.

The Speedboat pond was fuel infested and the only time we ever went in the water was against our will. There were times that we'd slip off the dock and fall in the water or get thrown in by fellow employees as was the tradition on the last day of the season. I can recall getting tossed in the water at the end of the day and then leaving a brown-stained silhouette of myself imprinted on the light gray cloth upholstery of my car.

A common source of fun at Speedboats was at the park patrons' expense. Many times before getting in a boat we'd be handed a camera and asked to take pictures. We would gladly take the camera and snap a few shots and then promptly duck into the boat house and expose ourselves to the camera – careful not to show our faces – and then eagerly return the camera. Thankfully the age of digital photography hadn't hit yet.

It was always fun when someone didn't fully grasp the concept of the engine's throttle lever. We would blow our whistles to signal when the ride was over and often have a boat speeding out of control straight for our dock. Many times that boat ended up either flying up on the dock or flipping over upon impact with the dock's loading area. Good times.

Also important to mention was the 225lb weight limit for riding in a boat. We didn't have a scale so we had many questionable patrons who claimed to be under the limit. My friend Missy and I spotted a very large gentleman on line, made eye contact with one another, shook our heads, but reluctantly allowed him to enter a boat. We were too nice to tell anyone that they were too large to ride. Instead we watched as the man shimmied himself down into the seat and sluggishly left the loading dock with a group of boats. By the the time the other boats were on their second or third lap, the man slowly appeared on the far side of the island with the nose of his boat underwater.

The boat was sinking quickly so I headed out on a boat that was reserved for dealing with emergency situations. When I got to him, his boat was almost completely underwater and the man was frantically trying to pry himself from inside the cockpit. This was one time to be thankful for the high viscosity level of the water because he slipped out of the boat before it completely submerged. With my boat, I dragged the man through the murky pond and back to the dock, but then came the task of trying to get him from the water back onto the dock. I think it took a ride attendant and two boat mechanics to get the man back on his feet, and the ride was closed for the remainder of the day so that the submerged boat could be rescued.

We expected to see a scale at Speedboats shortly after this incident, but this was the Park. We never saw that scale, and as a result I got really good at rescuing people from sinking boats.

The Dukes of Sussex

2009-09-07T21:30:00.005-04:00

In the Park's heyday, Cobblestone Village was filled with gift shoppes, food concessions and a "Broadway" stage. But as attendance fell off, more and more of them were shuttered. Some were repurposed as offices or used for storage and some, well, some were used for other purposes.

The Park was located in Sussex County, a red pocket of an otherwise Blue State, and as such, there was a certain, uh, disregard, for the federal government and their pesky rules. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that one night, during a routine sweep of the area, security found a functioning still in one of the vacant shoppes.

Moonshine. Apparently, it's making a comeback.

Parkular Mechanics

2009-07-08T16:57:00.004-04:00

Popular Mechanics posted a piece recently titled 5 Theme Park Rides that Pushed the Limits of Common Sense. Guess which park featured two out of the five?

At The Movies

2009-03-31T21:03:00.010-04:00

So. Adventureland.

I liked it much better than I thought I would. The director, Greg Mottola, worked at an amusement park on Long Island in his youth, and he really captured the tedium and soul-sucking nature of the job. The kids with their life ahead of them, trying to figure out their place, trying to live up to their parent's expectations, or free themselves from their parents' mistakes. Wondering if they'll ever get out of Pittsburgh. Get to New York. Get the girl. Figure out who they are, who they want to be. Figure out that the strangely clean and well groomed maintenance guy is full of crap- he never jammed with Lou Reed and he's never going to leave his wife, in fact he'll never leave Adventureland, because that is where he's the king.

It's not a new story Mottola's telling, but he tells it well. And he fills it with great little touches- like the flirty hot girl isn't called Lisa- she's Lisa P. Because in a place like Adventureland, there's always going to be people with the same first name. Or when James, the protagonist, bursts into the manager's trailer trying to escape an angry patron, and without speaking, or even looking up, Kristen Wiig's character throws Bill Hader a baseball bat and he runs out to confront the problem. It's a dance they've done before.

Mottola did a Q & A after the screening and talked about how he had to fight to keep it a period piece, which was one of my favorite aspects of it, since it really put it in an almost parallel timeline with my Park experience. And Adventureland is the type of park that doesn't exist anymore. Besides, setting the film in the '80s allowed them to start off the film with the Replacements' Bastards of Young. In fact, the soundtrack (and Yo La Tengo's score) was dead on throughout.

Except for the roadhouse jukebox that featured the Velvet Underground. Emotionally, it worked, but VU in a bar like that? Never. The coolest thing you'd get is Neil Young.

Adventureland opens Friday. Hopefully, it will screen at the drive in.

Adventureland

2009-03-13T22:04:00.004-04:00

Oh great, someone beat me to the Park movie. Though this looks more like Bowcraft than the Park:

I pledge to you, Dear Reader, that I will go see this film and offer my professional opinion on the staff's shenanigans.

The Center Goes To Brooklyn

2009-02-23T20:50:00.004-05:00

If you like your blog posts in a more dynamic, audio visual format, please come to Union Hall in Park Slope on Tuesday, March 3. I will be participating in the Adult Education lecture series, theme for the night is Safety Lessons. And afterward, you can apply what you learned on their indoor bocce court.

From the Police Blotter

2008-09-29T08:09:00.004-04:00

Of all the rides I attended at the Park, the only one I actively hated was the Transmobile. It was hot, it was boring and the office manager usually staffed it with losers. Like this guy Ron. When he wasn't in uniform, he sartorial choices ran toward track suits and Oakley Blades. He was a Jersey dumbass in the Christopher Moltisanti vein. In fact, the one solid memory I have of him is particularly Christopher-esque.

One night, after the Park was closed for the day, he and another dude happened to be in the Spa parking lot as they were getting a beer delivery. Ron had the bright idea to steal one of the kegs. (Kind of like when Chrissy and Tony stole the cases of wine in Pennsylvania. Except they had guns. And were fictional.) Ron was promptly arrested. He was still wearing his Park uniform, something noted in the local paper, much to the staff's delight and management's chagrin.

That's how we do it at the AP...

2008-08-24T14:48:00.005-04:00

I got a text from Stacey the other day. She told me she had just explained the Park's version of water polo to her husband. It wasn't much different from regular water polo, really. (At least, based on my quick skimming of the sport's Wikipedia entry, I don't think it was....) Games were held after hours in the Wave Pool and teams were loosely organized along departmental lines. Though sometimes, if a side was short, players were recruited from outside the Park. Like the time Bree showed up with two dudes she met at Burger King, who played while wearing cardboard BK crowns. There were a few differences between our method of play and what you saw on the OC or in Beijing, the most noticeable one being the fact that we played in tubes. No treading water for us. I suppose it was to give the other teams a chance to be on par with the stronger swimmers from Waterworld, though it could also have been because most of us were half drunk during the games. Which would also go a long way towards explaining why the Motorworld team always played in their jumpsuits.

That's Not in the Handbook

2008-07-25T09:34:00.007-04:00

When I tell people I worked at the Park's Bungee Tower, one of their first questions is always, "So, how many people died on that ride?" When I tell them none, and that there were rarely even any injuries on the ride, they are both dubious and, dare I say it? Disappointed.

We would often assure nervous patrons that they were at one of the safest rides in the Park. Which isn't necessarily the most comforting thing they could hear, based on the Park's reputation, but it was the truth.

Over the course of my tenure at the Park, I worked in 6 different departments. The only time I ever received any real training when I worked at the tower. It was certainly the only time I ever received a 20-page manual detailing standard operating and emergency procedures. Everything on the tower was checked and double checked every morning before we opened. Three people checked each patron's harness before they jumped. We kept logs on cord use and retired them promptly. There were rules, and we knew them. Which isn't to say that we always followed them ourselves:

To be fair, the manual didn't specify that you COULDN'T jump from the tower strapped into your snowboard, but it's probably safe to assume that it would have been frowned upon.

Cold Trade for Warm Sunshine

2008-05-06T12:41:00.003-04:00

Because I miss everything awesome, I was off the day Alice in Chains came to the Park to film segments for the Headbanger's Ball. Luckily, we can relive the magic via YouTube. Observe the band and Riki Rachtman fishing in Roaring Springs:

And Layne Staley losing his shorts on Surf Hill:

More clips can be found here, including Riki and Jerry Cantrell wrestling in Sumo suits. (In the Jungle Warriors ring. Yeah, I know. It makes no sense.) Those very same suits are still used at the Spa's annual Oktoberfest, proving that the organization is still not at all culturally authentic and/or sensitive and, more importantly, that you should never, ever put one of them on. It will take way more than a spritz of Lysol to vanquish metal sweat that's had 15 years to incubate. You can't snuff that rooster.

$3 off admission is no reason to patronize Pizza Hut

2008-05-06T11:46:00.004-04:00

Okay, this seems to be just a normal 80s Pizza Hut commerical, featuring the comedy stylings of Rich Hall, until you get to the end:

The Park slapped coupons on everything for awhile. I also worked at the local supermarket, and would often witness people stopping in on the way to the park to steal coupons off Coke bottles. Come on people, 2-liter bottles were usually on sale for $0.99. Couldn't you just buy the bottle?

Another New Jersey Institution Needs Your Help

2008-02-25T10:43:00.011-05:00

Okay, at the moment, the best connection I can make between WFMU and the Park is that they've both been featured in Weird New Jersey. They've both really shaped who I am today and they both probably shouldn't exist. But the Park did, and WFMU still does. And they need your money.

If the Park was open today, I would totally dive into the deep end of the Wave Pool and send them all of the loose change and jewelry I could scavenge. But it's not, so I'm just going to write them a check. You should too.

Don't beleive me? Ask the New York Times.

Tequila Shoes

2008-02-23T20:54:00.004-05:00

The First Aid Department had a tradition of throwing an end-of-season party in late August that was held after hours at the Park. Most years this was a fairly tame affair where you brought a pot-luck dish and hung around smoking cigarettes in the sticky summer evening, waiting until you figured you could duck out and head up to Highland Lakes or wherever the parties were before everyone went back to college. But you know there's always one year. One year that is so completely different from the utter mundane of tradition that you don't think anyone- even yourself given the passage of time- would believe that you didn't just make this shit up to tell a funny story.

But first we must start with Frank. Or Frankie. Frank was in his mid-forties, had been an EMT for about three years, and was enjoying his first summer working at the Park. He was a pretty colorful character, had been from Brooklyn or something, and had a whole gaggle of kids. The Bosses loved him, so they called him Frankie and gave him all the cush assignments. He never spent time down in the rings of Dante's hell that were Motor World. But Frank was a cool cat, so you didn't spite him for his fortune of getting assigned to the MR-10 (Mobile Rescue-10, an electric golf cart retrofitted with a litter and light bar) or the ambulance jobs. Frank worked hard, and he played hard. For the end of season party, he signed on to bring the refreshments.

The Bosses had worked out a deal with security on this particular year to let us throw our party a little later at night than usual, and let us park down at the dumpsters behind the gates. I brought little egg rolls. Frank brought several cases of beer and a few bottles of tequila. The whole thing started off innocently enough- some beers, some snacks, some spilled beers and snacks. Frank started pouring shots and daring the youngsters (that's me) to go shot-for-shot with him. The Bosses, who had also been drinking, wholeheartedly approved, and started announcing that "Reverend Frankie" was going to save our souls with his holy water. Much drinking and many drinking games ensued, with liquor flowing from urinal bottles and drunken EMTs slipping and falling all over the orange-painted concrete floor.

Frank grinned a mischievous smile, exposing his missing eyetooth on the left. He matter-of-factly stated it was time to take the MR-10 and Cushman (another retro-fitted bone wagon for unfortunate patrons) up to the wave pool for a swim. It was probably 10:30 at night. The Bosses approved.

Doug and Frank fired up the vehicles. The Bosses seat belted themselves in. The rest of us dumped black duffel bags loaded with life-saving equipment out of the vehicles and into the parking lot. We loaded the rest of the beer onto a stretcher and fastened it down with backboard straps.

We packed ourselves into the trailer of the Cushman, and grabbed onto whatever we could as Frank tore out of the base area, up the concrete ramp, and onto the cobbles in front of the lodge. It was pitch-dark, save for the lights of the vehicles, as we swerved leftward up the hill towards Water World. We narrowly missed sliding into the chain-link fence at the Bumper Boats as we veered off the macadam and into the grass. Tony took a tumble off the back of the MR-10, and rolled into the evening dew-covered lawn that led into the gully before Roaring Springs. We didn't wait for him. "You're gonna hafta hike your ass up the hill," Frank yelled, joyously drunken as he recovered the Cushman from swerving around him, speeding onward to the top of the hill.

The MR-10 slid to a stop on the asphalt patio in front of the Tiki Bar. The Cushman was not far behind. When the drivers killed the engines, the silence of a Vernon Night back in the mid-nineties prevailed. No Bob Marley discs on repeat mode blaring from the Tiki Bar. The usual multi-lingual chorus of voices around the Wave Pool Snack Bar was absent. The white shadow of the back wall of the Wave Pool lie ahead, and once my eyes adjusted, I could make out the silhouette of the “ACTION PARK” logo facing out into the dark, still water.

The Bosses waded into the shallow end. Tony made it to the top of the hill and started helping us unload the beers. Frankie ran to the end of the concrete sidewalk alongside the pool, and started climbing up the ladder to the top of the Wave Pool wall. From the top, it was probably a 20 foot drop into the water below. The Reverend jumped.

A series of hollers and “whoops!” followed as EMTs ran toward the ladder and made the ascent to the top deck. What followed can only be described as the absurdity that comes with the suspension of your own mortality, as drunken EMTs dove into the 12-foot-deep water. No lifeguards, no security, not a sober soul in Water World.

The rest of the night was a blur. Spilled food slicking the first aid floor. Wet clothes. A ride home from Shelley. I awoke to my alarm at 7:30 in the morning with a dried mouth, head pounding, but still unbelievably drunk. A knock at the door- Shelley had offered to come pick me up for work (this I somehow remembered). I got dressed, but couldn’t find my white sneakers (First Aid regulation) anywhere, so I put on my water sandals- it was Sunday, so the Bosses wouldn’t be in anyway.

When we got to work that morning, First Aid was a disaster. Doug was already there, mopping. I got bathroom detail. As I cleaned, I vomited. 8:30 am. The Park was opening in 30 minutes and there was still food on the floor, beer cans stacked on the treatment tables and counters, and staff either hungover or still drunk.

I came out of the bathroom and went into the back room, where the kitchenette was. It was under the spare gurney that I spotted my white sneakers, still damp and stinking like beer, soles caked with salsa dip. It seems I had left my shoes at work and went home barefoot. That was the last time I drank Tequila- it was 1995.

Everybody Wants Some

2008-02-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

Colleen just posted about the Van Halen concert she went to the other night. Which reminded me, as many things do, of the Alpine Slide.

I was loading the bottom chair. Matt P was on the phone in the lift shack. His eyes got huge, then he hung up the phone and burst out of the shack.

"Holy crap!!" he yelled. "David Lee Roth is back in Van Halen!"

The entire line of patrons let out a collective whoop. There may have even been a celebratory kick or two. One of those kickers may have been me. It was an immediate about-face from the normal staff/guest relationship that was tolerant at best, and outright hostile at worst. Because NOBODY likes Sammy Hagar. Or the guy from Extreme. Sadly, that mid-90s reunion didn't take. But Diamond Dave is back where he belongs now, and that's what matters.

The Action hasn't stopped, it's just on hiatus.

2007-12-11T18:09:00.001-05:00

My job is sucking my will to live right now, so much so that I'm thinking that an $8.50/hr (in 1995 dollars- adjust accordingly for inflation) office manager job would be a good career move. Please enjoy this park logo from the 80s until I dig out from under my mountain of work:

It's got some really nice movement, I think. Anyway, I promise I'll be back soon. With tales of porn and accounting errors. Though not in the same post.

Office Politics

2007-11-13T14:18:00.000-05:00

One winter, I was hired to work as an office assistant in lift operations. Stephanie, the department manager, hired a woman named Anne to be the office manager. Anne's qualifications, as far as I could see, were being old and knowing how to type. Old might not be the right word. She could have been anywhere between 45 and 65, it was hard to tell. She had a dowdy vibe about her- her hair was set, her lipstick was a bit too pink for her face, she wore slacks with nude nylons and what have traditionally been called sensible shoes. Sensible didn't necessarily equate to practical, as we worked at a ski resort. Inside, I'll grant you. But still.

It quickly became clear that Anne was kind of a dummy. She had no knowledge of or interest in any aspect of the resort that she didn't encounter between her car and her desk. Blue Chair, Yellow Chair, these were just words on the schedule sheet to her. One day she looked out the window and and asked me to point out the Blue Chair. I explained to her that it was the one directly in front of her. The one that was painted blue. I don't think I ever succeeded in getting her to understand that the Triple Chair was called that because it seated three people.

Worse was the fact that she couldn't handle the chaotic nature of the job. It takes a certain type of person to juggle the phone, two-way radio and shift change while simultaneously working on the next week's schedule or previous week's payroll recap. Anne just wanted to do her clerical duties in peace, which was never going to happen in that place. I needed to usurp her. Which... was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, since the assistant manager and most of the owners (supervisors) were on my side. She didn't take kindly to being ousted in favor of a 23-year old, but she probably went right out and got a real job, as opposed to the $8.50/hour the office manager gig paid. So, in retrospect, I'd say she was the winner in that coup.

Fire!

2007-10-16T13:08:00.000-04:00

What's that? You want a disaster porn image of the old Lodge on fire? I am here to oblige, sicko:

Insane, right? It burned down in October of 1999 and was replaced by the space port tents. Fortunately, no one was killed. As far as I know, they never figured out exactly what started it. But I have to say, the place was a tinderbox and it's a wonder it didn't go up years before it did. There was speculation at the time that the fire was not accidental. When questioned in December of '99 by the New York Times (I love working for a company with a ProQuest account) , a Park spokesperson replied, ''It's far fetched but it's easy to rule that out. Had we been thinking like that, we would have burnt it down in April.''

Time for a trip in the Way Back Machine

2007-10-04T10:08:00.000-04:00

Further back than usual, that is. I just found these links, which give a great overview of the history of Vernon Valley and Great Gorge, before and after they merged into one ski resort. A lot of it was new to me, especially the part about Vernon Valley's penchant for all-girl lift attendants in its early days. Very 1960s. (You know what was also very 1960s? The Playboy Club that was located across the valley from the resort. Swinging! )

I got a litle misty seeing images of the old lodges:

Here's Vernon Valley's lodge, which burned down in the mid-90s and was replaced with a collection of horrible, industrial-feeling domed tents. Seriously, they make you feel like you're in some sort of refugee camp. Or maybe a space port.

And here's the old Great Gorge, or South, lodge. It had three bars!!! It was also kinda creepy and to rumored to be haunted. I remember Phil, the director of security, saying he hated going there at night because "There's monstahs down there!" Phil ruled.

Minor Characters 2: The Trans Techs

2007-10-01T11:59:00.000-04:00

The Transmobile, a monorail that conveyed patrons between Alpine Center & Motorworld, was my least favorite ride to attend. It was a one-way deal, but people always wanted to make it a round trip ride, which damn near caused riots on busy days. There was no shade at either end, the mid-station was boring and your co-workers were usually lame. At the top, your friends could stop by, or at least wave, on their way to better rides. At the bottom, in Motorworld, you weren't as lucky. But at least had the techs to keep you company.

There were 4 or 5 of them, but over the years they've morphed into Glen and the rest. The rest included: Brian the boss (all I can remember about him was his general resemblance to Doug Henning), the runty guy with the harelip and the other one who wore too much cologne and had a girlfriend who worked at the Renaissance Faire. They cornered me in the parking lot of the A&P one day and lectured me on the sexual hierarchy of wenches, fortune tellers, pickle vendors, knights, etc... I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it.

Glen was the friendliest. He would hang out in the window of the maintenance shack that bordered the loading station and just shoot the breeze. Mostly he'd kvetch about his old lady (they were common law). When I told him I was taking a day off to go to Lollapalooza on Randall's Island, he gave me the address of a video store in the Bronx where I could score some primo weed. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince my ride to make the detour.

Postcards from the Edge

2007-09-24T17:24:00.000-04:00

The Park's gift shoppes used to sell a poster-sized map of the place. One of my favorite things about it was that it depicted attractions like the Tsunami- a more massive version of the Wave Pool which was never built. I've been searching online for an image, but all I can find is this postcard:

Which gives you an idea of the sheer size of the place, but no real detail. Water World's almost completely invisible. You can make out the Speed Boats and Super Lola tracks pretty clearly, and if you squint you can see the old 2-wing Bungee Tower, back when it was officially known as the Snapple Snap-Up Whipper Snapper. Catchy, huh?

Polka your eyes out

2007-09-21T15:44:00.000-04:00

Have I mentioned the Spa at Great Gorge before? It was the Park's upscale cousin. The company that owned both held onto it when they sold the Park off to the Canadians. They've sinced re-christened it Minerals. I worked in Member Services for a summer. The bar at Kites, the club's restaurant, was a popular evening destination for many Park employees.

If you happen to be in Northwestern NJ this weekend, stop by their 21st annual Oktoberfest. It is an excellent opportunity to drink beer in a field and listen to polka. The Jimmy Sturr Orchestra always brings it.

History Lesson

2007-09-21T13:13:00.000-04:00

I found this on Gothamist today. It has nothing to do with the Park, but it's kind of hilarious. Observe, if you will, a young Matt Dillon discussing the evolution of the amusement park. I shudder to think what the Park's version of the Human Pool Table or Human Roulette Wheel would have been:

And a bit of Matt Dillon trivia- his aunt was, and may still be, an English teacher at my high school. She is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met.

And now for something completely different

2007-09-15T16:37:00.000-04:00

Here's a poem written by our good friend Dellana. For those of you unfamiliar, the Internationale is a worker's anthem. No, it's THE worker's anthem. More versions than you could possibly imagine can be found here.

The First Time I Heard the Internationale

I was sixteen and drunk behind a motel
in Nowhere, New Jersey. Just another
summer working as a lifeguard at the local
water park-long hot days
in the cold chlorinated pools. Not bad,
except for the fumes from the motor
of the Colorado River Ride that made many
of the kids who worked there sick
and a few reported temporary blindness.
There was also the danger
of being pulled down the slide
by a bunch of drunk guys from the city,
the kind who thought the girls who worked there
were part of the package
included with the pricey wristbands.
Some days were harder than others
but most days we got out around eight,
stopped home for a shower, then out to the party—
someone's parents away on vacation or a field
with a keg in the back of a pickup truck
about twenty feet off of anything
that could be called a road. But
the night I'm talking about, the night behind the motel
where the foreign help stayed—young men
and women from Ireland, Mexico, England,
a guy from El Salvador, a couple from Hungary—
that night, from room to paint-chipped room the air
was thick with sweat and beer and clunky conversations.
It got to be late and someone had lost his keys,
thought they may have slipped from his pocket
when he was taking a piss out back,
such an easy thing to translate with hand signals
and laughter, soon the whole party
was bent down in the dirt or leaning
over the rickety back deck rails,
squinting and pointing. Anyway, I don't know
who started it, but slowly the voices gathered
and those of us who didn't know the words
were clumsily prompted by our neighbors who
were from everywhere and nowhere.

Minor Characters, Part 1: A Roundup

2007-09-14T14:26:00.000-04:00

There were lots of weirdos on the periphery of my Park experience.

First, there was Lloyd. He hung out behind the bottom shack at the Alpine Slide, fixing broken carts. He spoke a weird blend of some Scandinavian language and... something else. I found him terrifying, so I never got close enough to figure it out.

Then there was Rob T. He was the guy who sat at the summit all day. Everyday. He always had a text book with him, but I have no idea what he actually studied. He called supervisor Nancy a despot the day I was scheduled for summit instead of him.

Or how about Ron F, who was arrested trying to steal beer from a delivery truck at Kites while wearing his Park uniform. That one made the paper!

More to come...

Well, Hey There, Buckaroo!

2007-08-29T15:05:00.000-04:00

If you worked at the Park in the early to mid 90's, you probably remember Alex and Chris M, the twins who worked security. Nice, funny, super-friendly guys.

Before I worked Alpine Center, I worked in retail. For some reason, I always got scheduled taking pictures at the "Shark." It was a big shark's head made of foam and, I think, plaster. Guests could climb in its mouth and get their picture taken. For something like 8 bucks, they got a Polaroid. It was kind of cheap-looking, but everybody liked it and it was easy to work. I never really minded being there because I was in the shade nearly all day. I can take the heat, but my skin burns easily.

The Shark was also the base security post. I think the actual base security post was supposed to be along the Bumper Boats fence, but they always stood over by me because we always ended up talking across the pathway. Plus, they were in those crazy polyester pants, so if they were over by me, they could be in the shade, too.

Anyway, one day, Alex/Chris (I could tell them apart then, but I can't remember now.) is standing over by me and my Shark when a little boy comes up crying his head off for his mother. Between M Twin and I we figure he's lost. I mean, who wouldn't? The kid's all by himself, crying for his mother in the middle of a water park. You naturally think, " lost."

Well, Alex/Chris squats down to eye level with the kid, puts on a cheery face and says, "Well, hey there, buckaroo!" Before he could ask the kid if he's lost, the kid's mother came flying at him from out of nowhere! "Stay the hell away from my kid!" she screamed, much to our sheer surprise. Poor Alex/Chris was stunned. I thought the lady was going to deck him one.

Now, if you knew Alex and Chris M, this story probably made you go "Aww! Poor Alex/Chris!" I mean, they were just so darned nice, and he was only trying to do his job. If my kid were ever "lost" at an amusement park, I would certainly hope that a security guard as nice as Alex or Chris would try to help him out.

Wait, whuuuuuttt????

2007-08-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

I was recently telling a story about a woman we worked with named Denise. Along the way, I gave some exposition: She was a complete hippie. She worked at the bungee tower in the summer and as a snowboard instructor and sometime lift attendant during the winter. She had an awesome old farmhouse in West Milford, the next township over. So far, all pretty normal stuff, right? And then I uttered the kicker:

"Her parents disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle."

I said it with authority and conviction. But the thing is, I have no idea if it's actually true. Melissa says it is, and she's not one to tell tales out of school. If it is, it would go a long way toward explaining why a woman who was in her mid-30s (at least) would be working with a bunch of college kids for $7 an hour.

Lost!

2007-08-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

Stacey M had a second job at a bar called Sheridan's Lodge. It was at least 30 minutes from the Park, but Stacey lived within stumbling distance, so was a popular hang out for the Alpine Center crowd.

And when I say stumbling distance, I mean that literally. One night as Stacey M, Stacy G, Melissa and I were leaving the bar, Stacey M announced that she knew a shortcut. We trusted her because we were in her neighborhood. And because we were drunk. Well, Melissa was sober, but she humored us because she's a good sport.

"There's a path," Stacey M said, with a vague gesture at the wooded area across the street. "It leads right to my house."

So into the woods we went. There was a short, but steep, hill to conquer. It was tough going. I was wearing wooden-soled, platform shoes. Stacey M had to give me a push. Stacy G stopped to pee, and then looked to Melissa for help up the hill.

"I love you, Melissa!" she declared, as Melissa grasped her hand and hauled her up to the top. "I think I peed on my hand."

I take back what I said about Melissa being a good sport. Melissa is a SAINT.

We walked on. And on. And on. Stacey M stumbled, fell to the ground and just laid there. Almost immediately after that, I stepped into a hole and found myself up to my waist in brush. At this point, I realized that the shortcut was a colossally bad idea.

Despite my unforgiving footwear, I managed to get myself out. Stacey M got up off the ground, took a bleary look around, and slurred, "I don't know where the fuck I am." That made four of us.

Luckily, there's only so lost you can get in an acre or two of woods. Especially if those woods are between a county highway and a residential neigborhood on a clear and moonlit summer night.

The Not So Much Prodigal Returns

2007-08-09T12:18:00.000-04:00

I went to the Park yesterday for the first time since I got an orange soda on my break nearly ten years ago. My son Sean and I were there for my nephew's birthday party. We had to go to group check in to get our wristbands. I don't remember where it was before, but it's in Cobblestone Village now where Fitzgerald's Ice Cream used to be.

As soon as I cross under the archway, I immediately become pissed off and cranky. It was odd really. Nothing happened to make me angry. None of the hundred guests milling around without direction did anything to make me annoyed. It was just walking through the Park again. Of course, I did have to hoof it in the heat and humidity from a bottom dusty, rocky lot with a four- year-old that refused to hold my hand with cars and buses driving by not paying any attention. Personally, I think if you're there as an invited "guest" for a party they should reserve you spots near the entrance. Seriously, it's not like I was going there of my own free will. If I was just popping in as a regular old guest patronising the Park, fine. I'd park wherever the parking attendants half-heartedly pointed me. But since I haven't been there in ten years, I think it's safe to assume that I wouldn't have been going there on my own recognisance.

But enough for now of the snobby side of me; I'm digressing.

Sean and I go into Group Check In. They're very nice, despite the fact that a horde of people are heading their way. We sign in, they give us our wristbands, they even cut the excess off. They're very friendly 16-year-olds. Then one goes to point out on the map where Tristen's party is. Turtle Island or something like that, the kiddie park's called now. So I immediately look for the kiddie park where it was when I worked there, but she's pointing below towards the base area.

"Oh, the old Roaring Springs?" I say. I also want her to know that I've been in her shoes and I'm not there because I want to be. It was code, you see.

But I shouldn't have tried to use code with someone who would have been about six when Roaring Springs was there.

"Wha?" says Ms. Not-Yet-Jaded-By-Her-Job, complete with head tilt and all.

"Yeah, the old Roaring Springs." comes a mysterious voice from the back door. I look over and I swear I could hear that old western music they play when it's high noon and two cowboys are squaring off for a duel. The guy's, I'm not kidding you, smoking a cigarette and leaning up the against the railing, obviously on break. I wonder for a minute if it's Indian or Wacky. Whoever he is, is definitely a throwback to the old days. Maybe he was a washed up Gladiator, I'm not sure. But he disappears, remembering the old rule about not allowing guests to see you smoke in uniform.

But we understood each other, so it was okay.

Off Sean and I go to cross the footbridge and head into the park. I'm met in the base area with Janie's Got A Gun playing out of Sirius radio. I won't bother trying to explain Alpine Center; we all know it's gone. The base area is looking not too bad. They're obviously putting some money into the park and it's starting to gain a Great Adventure feel to it. I think this might disprove my husband's theory. You can, in fact, shine a turd.

You have to get your bag "checked" before you can go up the hill. Imagine my surprise when the black teenager in front of me gets completely searched and the guy hardly gives my scrappy sac a jiggle.

I hoof it all the way up past the Wave Pool to the lockers to stash some stuff. My husband will be disheartened, I think, to learn that one of First Aid's favorite hang outs no longer exists. You can no longer hide out and watch women go down Surf Hill and lose their bikini tops. Surf Hill I believe is still there, but I didn't see the hang out.

Sean's playing around in Turtleland, or whatever it was called, for, like, 15 minutes when we head up to the old Tiki Bar for lunch. No Bob Marley playing that I used to hear incessantly as I worked that little retail gift shop by the wave pool.

We're there for a few minutes when Melissa and her son Nathan join us. Melissa greets my brother in law and I with a "I hate this fucking place," grumble or something along those lines (the same misery acknowledgement that I had earlier) and I tell her about the cloud of annoyance that settled over me when I walked through the Cobblestone Village archway. She understands.

After pizza, I take Sean to the old rock pool which has been mostly filled in to make a little splash pond that's about a foot and a half deep for the little kids. But, of course, teenagers thinking they're hysterical and the first ones to think of it, wander in to get their pictures taken on the animal fountains, invariably getting whistled at by the lifeguard who hooked the cush assignment that day.

There's a frog slide that Sean was taken with. The slide itself is about five feet long, so it's just enough for a kid his size to get some serious speed going into this little pool. After a little while, he starts bouncing a bit when he hits the water, then starts falling back a little bit, coming awfully close to hitting his head on the bottom of the slide. Now, I highly doubt he would have been seriously injured, but it did remind me of the scalpings guests used to get on the Aqua Skoot.

As soon as I'm reminded of that, we're outta there, heading back down the hill for the 20 MINUTE trek back to my car in the stifling heat, humidity and sun.

As I pull out of the parking lot the depressing and annoyed shroud I had for the last few hours lifts like the morning mist and I turn towards home with my climate control waiting.

Home Alone

2007-08-06T15:34:00.000-04:00

If you worked at the Park and your parents were foolish enough to leave you at home while they went on vacation and you, in turn, were foolish enough to let your co-workers know, you could expect anywhere from 10 to 100 people to show up at your house every night for the duration of your parents' absence.

When it happened to me, I made the mistake of going grocery shopping BEFORE my home was invaded and as a result was hungry for the rest of the week.

A guy named John (or was it Brian? I always got those two confused.) who had two fish tanks in his family room woke up in the morning to find that the small fish had all been transferred out of their tank and into the other where they had been devoured by the larger fish kept there.

And then there was Dave. Dave's mom went away for a week and our entire department moved in. His neighbors had a motion sensor light on the side of their house closest to Dave's deck. We amused ourselves for hours each trying to see who could make it the farthest without tripping the sensor. You had to moooove verrrrry sloooowly and precisely to make any progress at all, and as this game coincided with beer drinking, most of us would only make it a foot or two before flooding the neighbor's yard with light. (Why they didn't call the cops on us, I'll never know.) Jamie made it all the way to the neighbor's house and most of the way back to Dave's deck before someone jumped into the sensor's field and sabotaged him. Very unsportsmanlike!

Office Invasion

2007-08-06T14:27:00.000-04:00

As Melissa noted earlier, the best place to eat lunch at the Park was our department's office. It was centrally located in the base area, right off of the Pizza Cellar. It was also a hub of employee activity, as it adjoined the Security office and was the distribution point for the Park's two-way radios. As such, it was a good place to get the gossip and make plans for the evening. But perhaps most importantly for the attendants, it was a break from the heat and the Park's guests. Most of the time, anyway.

One day, I was having lunch with Stacy, the office manager on duty, and Brett and Nancy, two of the department's supervisors. We heard a commotion outside in the Pizza Cellar. Nancy moved to investigate, but as she was turning the knob, the door flew open and two women tumbled into the office, locked in hand-to-hand combat.

Brett and Nancy jumped in to pry the women apart. Brett got the smaller of the two in a full-nelson and Nancy pinned the bigger one against the wall. They were still shouting at each other as Stacy called for security and I, well, I just protected my lunch. I'm no good in a fight.

This is John.

2007-08-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

John was an exchange student. He was known as John-the-Irish-Guy, John-I-Heard-He's-An-Underwear-Model, or, my favorite, Eurotrash. (That was Therese's pet name for him.) John didn't mind any of the nicknames. John didn't mind anything at all really. He was a laid-back guy.

However, one day, as John was jumping down to take his lunch break, he said something that one of the jumpmasters didn't like. I don't know what it was, but she decided to put him in his place. His place was, apparently, in mid-air. At the time I snapped this photo, he'd been hanging there for a little under 10 minutes. Then the radio started squawking; our supervisor was furious. It seems that some guests had noticed that there was this guy just hanging there from the bungee tower and they thought he was really stuck.

So the supervisor flipped out on all of us for making the only safe ride in the Park look dangerous. The jumpmaster reluctantly lowered John to the airbag. His legs were numb and he had missed half his lunch break, but you know what? John didn't mind.

Boredom: A Photo Essay

2007-07-31T12:00:00.001-04:00

One day, Brett decided to put on every harness he could find. Roger approved.

He then decided to clip in backwards.

And away he went.

Buckets of Beer and Touch Screen Trivia

2007-07-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

The Hexagon Lounge, the Park's bar/restaurant, was a popular apres-shift destination during the winter seasons. One of the main draws was the Bucket of Beer. It retailed for $5 and was composed of five random bottles left over from Beerfests past. Sometimes there were gems stuffed in there, but more often, the bottles were merely (or barely) drinkable.

In addition to the cheap beer and good company, the bar had a touch-screen trivia machine. While my fellow drunks would watch football or try to best each other on the virtual skier video game, I would feed dollar after dollar into the machine. I soon became the reigning music and TV trivia queen of the Hex.

One evening, I walked in to find several members of the Park's security staff belly up to the bar. Ed, an older gentleman, was looking rather morose. When I asked what the matter was, he told me nothing. A few minutes later, he spun around on his stool and exclaimed, "You know, I don't have much. I've got a shitty job, no girlfriend. All I had was my TV trivia high score. And YOU took that from me!!"

Damn! I had no response to that. Ed spent the rest of the season trying to best my high score, though I don't think he ever did. In any case, the trivia machine, the ski game, the left over beer, and rest of the Hex perished a couple of years later, when the entire lodge burned to the ground.

I Dream of Mickey

2007-07-27T13:10:00.000-04:00

I hope we're not giving the impression that it was all fun and wacky hijinks in polyester over there. We spent a lot of time being flat out miserable. It was usually brutally hot, everywhere you wanted to go was uphill both ways, and there wasn't even a comfortable staff lounge to eat in. You either had to eat in the cafeteria with guests who ignored that fact that you were on your lunch break and asked you a million questions, or you ate in the dank, dark "Pizza Cellar" that had all the charm of a dungeon. The only air-conditioned place was the office, and you only got to eat in there if you were on good terms with the O.B. (Office Bitch) and nobody else was around. (Note: Most of the O.B.s were lovely people who got their titles based on the fact that they worked in the only place that wasn't stifling.)

Sometimes, whilst in the depths of despair, we'd compare our lot to that of our bretheren in better theme parks.
"I heard at Disney they actually wash your uniforms for you."
"Yeah, and they make more than minimum wage."
"You know what I heard? I heard at Disney, they have this underground tunnel system so you can walk through the park to your position without being stopped by customers and then yelled at for being late."

It was pathetic, like something out of Orwell. We were like these overworked farm animals and Disneyworld was freakin' Sugar Candy Mountain. I mean, how depressed do you have to be to speak longingly of working for the Mouse?

Shake it off

2007-07-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

One afternoon, I was working an Alpine Slide mid-station. Located near the bottom of the slide, the main purpose of the position was to assist riders who crashed on the way down. Radio traffic was slow for the day but that was about to change.

One of our special needs employees was working at another mid-station higher up the slide. He called over the open channel for the slide and shouted that he had witnessed a park patron urinating off of the chair lift which carried people to the top of the slide. (Bear in mind that the slide ran UNDER the lift.) Brett, the ride supervisor, asked, "did you actually see him going?" To which he answered, "No, I saw him shaking it off!"

The patron was confronted at the top of the slide, he response was that he needed to relive himself but neglected to do so before boarding the chair lift. The top ride attendants were dumbfounded by the man's honesty.

The Dance of Work Joy

2007-07-19T12:52:00.001-04:00

In addition to demonstrating how tremendously psyched we were to be at work that day, this photo also showcases the unflattering nature of the Park's uniforms. Those shirts? Poly-cotton blend. I don't recommend wearing them outside all day during high summer. Or ever, really. They're fucking hideous.

The Action Never Stops

2007-07-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

Here's another Park commercial from the 80s.

a>.

Prominently featured are the Aerodium and the Rock & Roll Show, both of which could be heard from the mid-stations on the Slide. The Aerodium was run by a crazy German guy who liked to yell things like, "Up, Up, UP! You fly first class!" over booming dance music. The Rock & Roll Show how was an oldies musical revue- Doo Wop, 60s Girl Groups, etc. sung with ENTHUSIASM. Fun for the whole family! If your family is boring.

After the rain...

2007-07-11T21:29:00.000-04:00

...came the task of drying the track of the Alpine Slide. The track was a slick fiberglass, so the job was tricky. How did we do it? Well, as you might imagine, the process was impressive and well thought-out.

First, we went to the Lost and Found and grabbed whatever beach towels had been left there by guests. Then, we rode the lift with carts and towels in tow. Once at the top of the slide, we positioned ourselves on the carts with one towel in front of us and one behind. Finally, we took off down the slick fiberglass track, doing our best to go slowly and avoid tangling the beach towels in the runners of our carts. (I think we steered with our knees.) And I believe we prayed, as well. Yes.

After one particularly violent storm, I was about halfway down the track when I had an almost very nasty run-in with Nature. I was so busy concerning myself with the fact that I'd already worn my beach towel bald so that it wasn't absorbing any more water, and that I was gradually picking up speed--very nerve-wracking, that--that I failed to notice the flock of wild turkeys just parked there on the tracks in front of me. What to do? I threw the useless towel aside, pulled up violently on the brake, all the while shrieking, "TURKEY! TURKEY! TURKEY!" at the top of my lungs. Well, these clever turkeys must've known I was talking about them, so they flew out of my path at the last possible second, in a very Hollywood-stunt-turkey manner.

Turkeys on the tracks, baby. What a great job.

How not to ride a chair lift.

2007-06-14T10:49:00.000-04:00

Radio, Radio

2007-06-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

While most rides at the Park would only close during electrical storms, the Alpine Slide would close at the first sign of precipitation. Even the slightest bit of water would send carts careening of the tracks. Not that people didn't careen off the tracks when they were dry, but that's another matter.

Most of the time, the attendants would stay in the ride area and wait for the rain to stop. If you were at the top of the Slide, you were basically stuck there. If you were at the bottom, you had more options. Which brings me to the following exchange, heard over the Park's Channel 9 one afternoon, after a rain delay:

"Alpine top to Alpine bottom, copy?"
"Alpine Pizza to Alpine top, go ahead."
"Hey Brett, what time do you think we'll be able to open.... Wait, whuuuuut?"

Luckily, they brought pizza back for the top attendants, thus averting a mutiny.

A Steve By Any Other Name

2007-06-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

I worked with a lot of dudes named Steve at the Park. So many that we had to add qualifiers to their names. One such Steve was dubbed Big Steve. Because he was, literally, big. Well, tall anyway. And he liked to work out. A lot. In contrast to the longer, baggier style of the early 90's, Big Steve had curly hair and liked his shorts short and his shirts tight. He resembled nothing so much as a he did a 70s porn star.

Since Big Steve didn't drink, he rarely hung out. Or maybe he just didn't like us. One memorable exception was Slidestock, held in a girl named Brooke's backyard on the same weekend as Woodstock '94, but with less mud and corporate sponsorship.

Around midnight, we ran out of booze. Steve was the only sober one there and he and I were both over 21, so we were nominated to go on a beer run. After taking orders (mostly beer, with one exception, which I'll get to in a minute) and collecting money, we got into Steve's red Mazda sports car (See! Porny.) and drove to the 24-hour Mobil Mart in Warwick, NY. We loaded up the counter and when the cashier asked us is we needed anything else I remembered that my friend Jason had asked me to buy him condoms.

"Yeah, I need a box of Trojan ribbed, lubricated...." I went on and on. Jason had been very specific about the brand & type he wanted, and I was very drunk. The cashier looked at me with confusion and I finally slammed my hand down on the counter and yelled, "Condoms! I need condoms!"

The cashier looked at me, then looked at Big Steve who was standing behind me in his short shorts and tight sweatshirt. She smiled and pointed- "They're over there. Help yourself."

It was hard to tell who was more horrified by her assumption, me or Steve. Probably Steve. Despite his appearance, he was really uptight and I don't think he appreciated being likened to a porn star. Which probably explains why, by the next summer, he was sporting a shaved head and weird (even by 90s standards) facial hair. Luckily, he still wore the short shorts. But it wasn't the same.

$71 Well Spent

2007-05-29T17:20:00.000-04:00

I just got back a wedding in Puerto Vallarta. I had a really great time drinking cervezas y margaritas and making the locals laugh with my poor command of their language and currency. Don't know why it was so hard to grasp the fact that 10 pesos equaled roughly one dollar, but it was.

Anyway, my friend Catherine and our new friend Holly and I decided to go on a Canopy Tour. This entailed us getting into a rickety truck (which began its life as a Russian military vehicle) and riding miles and miles up into the mountains via a one lane dirt road. I don't recommend doing it with a hangover, but I managed to survive without vomiting over the side. Yay, me!

After we arrived at the site and got into our harnesses, we we trekked up the mountain to the first zip cord. As you can see, I enjoyed it:

About halfway through the tour, I realized that this was like Mexico's version of the Park. The banter between the staff, the wacky antics of the video guy, the guides showing off for the cute girls... Then one of our guides broke out a Park classic- he dropped a bolt, which he had surreptitiously hidden in his pocket, as he was buckling the middle-aged lady from South Dakota onto the zip cord. He was all, "Where'd that come from? Ah, you'll probably be fine! Off you go!"

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Jump Down

2007-04-30T11:35:00.000-04:00

I recently read that the Dean of Admissions at MIT resigned because she fabricated her academic credentials way back in the 70's. Which reminded me of a bungee supervisor at the Park, who also acheived power through a lie. (dun Dun DUN!!) His name was Bill, but we called him Weeble. Because that's what he looked like. He was red-faced and shiny and round. And while Weebles, with their wobbling and their not falling down, give joy to children, Bill was a total douche. And though Marilee Jones fibbed on her resume, she apparently was very good at her job and was beloved by the MIT community and the world of higher education. Bill was completely incompetent. And he wore lame sunglasses.

Now you may be saying, "Come on, Therese! Are you really equating the dean of one of the most prestigious colleges in the U S of A to a low-level supervisor at an amusement park remembered more for its injury rate than its rides and attractions?" Yes. Yes, I am.

Anyhoo, one of the former bungee supervisors had moved to Colorado and his position needed to be filled. Enter the Weeble. According to his resume, he had been a bungee supervisor someplace in upstate New York. Or maybe it was the Jersey shore. The point is, no one checked his references. He got the job. At first, we just thought he was a dick. But a dick you kind of felt sorry for, because he was the kind of dick who desperately wanted to be popular.

Then we started noticing that, though he would frequently climb the tower to offer the jumpmasters his opinion, he never jumped. He would always walk back down the stairs. Weird. And he was frequently out of his area. He'd be spotted in down in Motorworld, or up at Surf Hill. Once, he even came to check on me at the summit of the Alpine Slide. Which, despite what has been said about Water World, really was the easiest position in the entire Park. You literally just sat there all day because, legally, someone had to be there. There was no contact with patrons, since they got off at a mid-station. You might possibly have to maybe take a cart off, if they missed it at the top of the slide. And someone might call you to ask about the weather, since the spot was at the top of a mountain and thus offered a pretty sweet, and long, view. It was a great place to get a tan, read, smoke the smoke... But I digress.

He would show up for the interdepartmental water polo games (held afterhours in the Wave Pool) not to compete or to cheer on our team, but to leer at his female subordinates in bathing suits. The day after one match, he came up to me at the tower and said, "Therese, I saw another side of you last night. Of your top half, that is." Ew! Inappropriate, and worse, not even funny!

Management caught on to his duty-shirking, sexual-harassing ways pretty quickly. Upon a belated check of his references, it was found that he exaggerated his qualifications. He had worked at another bungee facility, but briefly and not in any sort of supervisory capacity. The Weeble was shown the door.

Several months later, as I was buying a ridiculous pair of white vinyl go-go boots at the Joyce Leslie in the Rockaway Mall, my friend Stacey came tearing up to me with a look of horror-spiked delight on her face. She had spotted Bill and his lady friend at the back of the store shopping for racy underthings. You stay classy, Weeble!

Debunking the Steve Albini Connection

2007-04-27T15:22:00.000-04:00

As awesome as this album is, it has nothing to do with the Park.

Too bad, really.

Orange Soda

2007-04-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

Double shifts and 60-hour work weeks were common at the Park. It was the only way to rack up enough hours to qualify for an unlimited ski season pass and besides, all your friends were at the Park, so what else were you going to do? Might as well come to work.

One day, my friend Mark* and I were pulling doubles at the top of the Bungee Tower. It was well into the afternoon and neither of us had had a break. Mark got on the radio and tried to get someone to relieve us, but we were short on jump masters that day and it was going to be awhile before anybody would be able to come up. A few minutes later my sister Anne Marie came back from her break. Mark called down for her to come up because he needed an orange soda. Anne Marie put on a harness and made her way up the tower. Mark jumped down and took off towards the Lodge. A few minutes later, we saw him out in the parking lot, walking toward his car. Confused, I yelled out to ask him where he was going. Mark made a vague gesture, got into his VW and drove away. All the way to his mom's house in Florida. For the rest of the season, the orange soda was our rallying cry anytime we felt exploited or unappreciated.

Fast forward 10-plus years. Mark and Jen, his girlfriend, showed up at my last birthday party, said hello and promptly disappeared. I later found out that they left after waiting at the bar for 20 minutes without so much as a nod from the bartender. Jen's all, "We can't leave! We just got here! It's Therese's birthday!" Mark's response, "She knows about the orange soda. She'll understand."

*Mark T, not to be confused with Opposite Song-singing Mark B.

The Ride That Spawned A Thousand Legends

2007-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

I give you the most notorious ride at the Park, the Cannonball Loop- pictured here on one of the rare days it was operational:

Yes, it is a looping water slide. Crazy, I know. Rumors that someone got stuck at the top of the loop or that a dummy was dismembered during testing were just that- rumors. I think...

This was an enjoyable ride to attend, because most people were completely afraid of it, so you didn't have much to do but sit around and talk with your co-workers. Though if your co-workers were creepy, as they sometimes were, then it wasn't so much fun. Anyway, on the infrequent days that we had enough staff on hand and enough patrons in the Park to justify opening the Loop, the protocol went like this:

Manager and maintenance inspect the ride for proper water pressure, cracks in lining that could snag a rider, etc.
Employee volunteers are sought to test the ride. When no one volunteers, incentives (bribes) are offered, lunch, cash, a date with a Jungle Chick...
Eventually some poor fella agrees to be the tester. He (it was always a he) strips down to his shorts, removes any jewelry, is hosed down (for maximum slippery-ness) and off he goes into the tube, to emerge seconds later looking shaky and pale.

Once the ride was cleared for operation, the waiting began. Like I said, most patrons were too afraid (0r too sensible) to attempt the Loop. And a good portion of those who wanted to were nixed because of inappropriate attire- anyone wearing anything with zippers or grommets or anything that could possibly cause a snag was turned away. Too big? Sorry, you could get stuck. Too small? Ooh, you probably won't get up enough speed to clear the top, why don't you try the Bumper Boats instead?

If the rider got to the top, he (Again, the riders were mostly dudes. Read into that what you will.) suffered the final indignity of being sprayed with a garden hose. The top attendant then instructed the rider on the only acceptable ride position (on your back, feet first, arms folded across chest, ankles crossed), waited for the hatch attendant to check inside for any weirdness (cracks, water not flowing, etc), and then WHOOSH! Off they went. They made a godawful racket in there, with the bumping around and the screaming, but they always made it out alive, though no one was foolish enough to ride it a second time.

All Right, Get on the Bus!

2007-04-18T17:46:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite Park memories of all time:

This guy here? This is Jamie. He's one of my absolute faves. I stopped by to see him one day and we found this bus in a storage room. It was originally used as a display in one of the retail shops. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting into the display, but Jamie seized on it. It took some wriggling, but he managed to get in relatively easily. Getting him out was more difficult, but I'm pleased to say that both he and the bus survived.

Fruit as Projectile.

2007-04-13T11:17:00.000-04:00

I don't want to give anyone the impression that all anyone ever did while working at the Park was act like a responsibility-shirking jerk, but, since most of the job involved sitting around waiting for something to happen, you made your own fun. And that fun was mostly of the Jackass variety.

Watching Michael & Dwight throw a watermelon off the roof of Dunder-Mifflin on the Office last night reminded me of one of those times. For a few seasons in the mid-90s, the Park featured a ride called the Sling Shot. It was billed as "Reverse Bungee Jumping." Two people were strapped into a pod, which was suspended by thick rubber cords between two metal poles. Increase the tension on the cords and boom! The pod goes flying upward. And then downward. And then upward again. (See this similar, but somehow safer-looking, ride in Reno, NV.) It was fantastically scary-- not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

One night, just after the Park closed, the attendants decided to see what would happen if they launched a watermelon. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect. (As long as what you expected was a watermelon-sized crater at the base of the ride and an impressive pattern of fruit splatter. Oh, and MOD Al's apoplectic episode when he discovered the damage the next morning.)

Water World Wars

2007-04-13T10:21:00.000-04:00

Most of my Park days were spent working in Water World. Someone paid me to stand around in a bathing suit and get a tan. It's what I would have done all summer anyway so why not collect a pay check? Of course, I took my life guard class and test, and I passed (Thank God my brother DJ was one of the instructors) but I worked as a "ride attendant". I spent my days watching people ride the tube ride and, one year, sliding down Surf Hill. I also gave a lot of "Hello good morning and welcome to the Park..." speeches. Water World was a cush job regardless of which ride you worked.

Every summer we had Water World Wars. All of the employees in water world came to the park one hour before it opened, broke into 2 teams divided by the rides we worked on and competed in the most absurd events you can imagine. We essentially rode every single ride in water world in a way the ride was not intended to be used and in ways that we would have kicked people out of the park for. Of course I don't actually recall there being a prize for the winning team. Maybe there was, but more likely not.

So in my first year as a ride attendant I competed in Water World Wars. In the midst of a tough race we came to the 21-man chain. Here every member of the team sat behind one another on the Green Water Slides, grabbed the person in front of them by the shoulders and the entire team raced down the water slide. There were 2 slides so it was a race to the bottom. The first team down and out of the pool at the bottom won. In true Jersey style, I had absurdly long nails (not elegantly long and manicured--long like talons). As my team got to the bottom of the slide and hit the small pool, the impact made me jump a little and I grabbed the shoulders of the guy in front of me harder. My nails dug into him and he jumped. His shoulder hit my nose and it broke-I immediately passed out. As everyone in my team ran out of the pool to win the race, I lay face down, passed out, with a broken and bleeding nose--someone actually had to come in and get me out. My team lost the race.

Truly a shining moment--I had 2 black eyes for weeks--my nose has never recovered.

Now I'm really stretching.

2007-04-12T17:12:00.000-04:00

But I'll allow it, because of the time I was reading Breakfast of Champions at the mid-station of the Transmobile and Al, the Manager on Duty, threatened to throw the book in the Mini Golf pond if he caught me reading at my post again.

RIP, Kurt Vonnegut

A tale that is tangentially related to the Park

2007-04-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

I'm having trouble with my Cannonball Loop post, so here's a little something to tide you over until I tell the story of the scariest ride ever:

One summer night, some of my Park friends and I decided to go to the Warwick Drive-in.* On the way, we stopped for provisions at Gary's, a popular bar and and packaged goods establishment. After paying for my six-pack, I stopped to say hello to a Park acquaintance named Charlie, who was seated in his usual spot. Charlie was my favorite drunk. It was rumored that he lived above the bar. At an All-Night Ski Party, I saw him slide headfirst down Surf Hill, through a fetid puddle of muck and leaves, and into a wall.

As we were chatting, a small man came out of the kitchen. He was sporting a Yosemite Sam moustache and in his hand were several sticks of dynamite- taped together, fuses braided, the works. Instead of cowering in terror, or trying to disarm Yosemite Sam, the majority of the bar's patrons started chasing him with their cigarette lighters.

I turned to Charlie, "Do you think that's real dynamite?"

"Probably," he replied. With that, I took my leave. The bar is still standing, so either Yosemite Sam was faster than all the drunks, or someone came to their senses and stopped the madness.

*Which is still in operation and currently showing Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse. You should go. For reals.

Remember kids, always wear sunscreen.

2007-03-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

See my nose? If I ever get skin cancer, I can probably trace it back to that sun burn. Melissa, obviously, was more diligent with her SPF 30.

And I like how our black shorts make us look as if we're floating torsos. Spoooooky.....

An Interesting Short (Or, The Most Brilliant Patron Identifier)

2007-03-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

I'll try to spin the most minor of The Park's idiosynchracies into something entertaining:

We all gaze longingly into the middle-distance and recall our own departments as the coolest areas in The Park to work- Bungee Tower had suburban testosterone and views of thunderstorms rolling into the valley from McAfee. Lola Cars folks got to race around "testing the cars," and scam food from the Lola Cafe all day. Alpine Base sat in AC and ruled over the slide-grommets' destinies. First Aid rolled the dice of potential HIV exposure mixed in with a healthy dose of boredom, spades, and laziness. GS got to pick up baby diapers from the Wave Pool. But nobody could beat the gig held at the top of Big and Little Gironomo.

These life guards truly had the cush show. They were the creme de la creme- or at least knew someone in a low-grade supervisory role- and hung out at the top of the cliff jumps. The cliff jumps were always shady as a lazy summer day- a cool breeze blew off the water of the 20-foot-deep pool below; the sound of waterfalls echoed from within this oasis of trees that was tucked between the bumper boats and the Tiki Bar. These guards were the most physically fit- they all looked good in The Park-issue shorts or one-piece suits. They could jump from 30 feet above and descend upon the hapless swimmer, thereby saving their pathetic lives from certain demise in the tragic and uncharted waters of Vernon Valley.

I was already working at The Park and into my second summer season when I had noticed it. My middle-distance gaze today cannot recall if I was tending to a nondescript head injury, or maybe boarding and collaring a neck injury in the Colorado River Rapids, but there it was. "CFS."

As the kind of person who usually plays off something I don't understand, waiting until it's meaning or definition reveals itself through casual conversation or some other means of learning it's context, I waited curiously. But I kept seeing "CFS" on the wristbands of patrons, written in black sharpee marker. Sometimes in the Base area, online at Tarzan, hanging poolside at the Wave Pool, at the Signal Six Code Yellow at the queue pool- everywhere I went.

The mystery was solved for me one day at the top of Big, in the shade. I had been hanging around there with Steve and Jimmy- two lifeguards who were supposed to be The Shit and had graduated from saving a dozen a day from The Wave Pool- and I casually posed the question about "CFS."

I had a good segue. Steve had just turned away a patron from the 30-foot jump after checking his wristband, which even I could spy had "CFS" conspicuously emblazoned in bold black upon it. I said, "Hey, why could'nt that guy jump?"

Steve glanced down at the next patron's band- which was clean of this demarcation- and let him pass on to the jump. He responded, "Care-Free Swimmer."

"Huh?" I asked. That patron had passed and jumped; the line empty.

"Can't Fuckin' Swim. These assholes come here and jump into 20-foot water thinking it's as deep as their bath tub and they sink to the goddamn bottom. I see CFS on their wristband, I know they've already been rescued from drowning once today. Probably at the Wave Pool. I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna jump off of this into that ice-water and pull him out again. I swear, these fuckers sink right to the bottom, and they're always 200 fucking pounds."

He paused, realizing he had to clarify the dual meaning "CFS." "If someone asks what CFS means, though, we tell them 'Care-Free Swimmer.'"

"Oh," I said. Mysteries solved.

Yeah, these guys had the cush show, and I guess they jumped off that cliff to rescue folks a lot less often than I had figured. After all, the Wave Pool guards had already screened out most of the victims for them.

Much Better Than A Snow Angel

2007-03-02T20:35:00.000-05:00

I've been going through old photos lately, hoping to find blog gold. Like this. This is Joe. He sculpted a scale model of his VW Golf out of snow, proving that A) he really, really liked his car, and B) the Triple Chair is seriously underused.

It doesn't get more Jersey than this.

2007-02-14T15:11:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, here's a clip of the Misfits, sans Glenn Danzig, performing at the Park in the mid-1990s:

Jerry Only and Doyle both live in town.* Their dad owns a factory. I think Jerry coaches little league. Or is it youth soccer? They are pillars of the community. And the kids? They love 'em.

*As does Black Flag's Robo and Bobby Blitz of Overkill. What's attracting all these rockers? Must be the fresh mountain air. (Though, if the rumors are true, Bobby's son has severe allergies and spends most of his time in a bubble.)

I think this post's mostly filler...

2007-01-22T11:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a commercial from the Park's heyday:

Oh, and Lady in the Yellow Shirt? It was never, ever like going to Broadway.

Joe the Sign Guy

2007-01-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

The signs at the Park would not have won any design contests. Most were purely informational, with vinyl letters affixed to a green or brown-painted piece of plywood. They were all made by an old hippie named Joe. He was the Sign Guy. Joe the Sign Guy.

Sometimes, when it got slow in the sign shop he would pick up some extra shifts in Lift Operations. He would come into the office before he was scheduled to start, sit down with a big sigh and say, "Hiiii TheRESE." It was always surprising to hear such a lilting singsong come out of such a big dude.

One day, he came in to the office while I was in the midst of payroll reconciliation, shift change and a general nervous breakdown. He sat down and greeted me as usual. After dealing with whatever jerky 18-year old was hassling me over his shift assignment I turned to him and started complaining about how hard it was to get anything done in that office. I needed some sort of Do Not Disturb sign, but meaner. Would he make me one that said Fuck Off?

"Sure, TheRESE. I'm low on vinyl in the shop, but as soon as I get more in, you got it."

I promptly forgot all about the Fuck Off! sign. But Joe, bless his heart, did not. A year or so later, I stopped by the Park during the off season to visit a friend. As I passed the sign shop, the window flew open, and through the cloud of cigarette (and possibly pot) smoke that billowed out I heard Joe yell, "TheRESE! I have something for you!"

Sure enough, it was a FUCK OFF! sign. The plywood was painted white, the letters were red. It was beautiful.

SnOasis, or, What Happens When You Try To Run A Summer Ride In Winter

2007-01-02T16:48:00.000-05:00

Unlike this winter, 1996's was a cold one. The Park, in conjunction with a New York City Top 40 Radio Station, decided to PUT ON A SHOW!!!! An outdoor concert to feature, among others, Noel Gallagher from Oasis. To make it more of an Extravaganza, management decided to open the Bungee Tower for the day.

I was living in Boston at the time, but decided to come down for the show. I hadn't been home in awhile, and this seemed as good an excuse to make the trip as any. Plus, it totally made my Brit Pop-loving co-workers in the record store jealous. So I hopped on the bus and high-tailed it down to New Jersey.

My sister and I arrived at the Park the next morning and made our way out to the tower. Our friend Steve was already there, setting up the airbags. The sun was shining. The air was cold. The stage was set up in the parking lot. Music filtered over-- Alanis Morrissette, Garbage, and, of course, Oasis. Wonderwall, to be exact. It's a pretty song. We heard it about 17 times that day.

Steve and I climbed to the top of the tower, where we realized that, in addition to being cold, it was also windy. And icy. So windy, that the steel cables that attached to the top of the rubber bungee cords (which allowed the jumpers to be safely lowered to the ground after their jump) were blowing off the retrieval arms (used to pull the cord back in to the top of the tower, thus allowing the next jumper to be buckled to the end of the cord.) To correct this, Steve or I had to climb up on to a catwalk above the jump platform and manually reposition the wayward cable. There was no ladder to facilitate this. You had to climb on to the railing and hoist yourself up. It was no big deal in the summer, but factor in the cold and the wind and the ice? Danger! Luckily, neither of us plummeted to our death.

Back to the cold. We had been given a space heater. We presumed it was to keep us warm. Not sure how one puny heater was going to keep two people warm in the middle of a howling gale, we hit on an idea-- Let's take everything out of the equipment locker, put the heater in, and sit in it! Genius! We later found out that we had been given the heater not out of concern for our well-being, but for that of the cords. Seems they were only safety tested to work in temperatures above freezing. Whoops!

So we huddled in our box, listened to Wonderwall on an almost constant loop and prayed that no one was crazy enough to want to jump in those conditions. But, unfortunately for us, there's always someone willing to walk up seven stories in ski boots.

Oh, and Noel Gallagher? He showed up right before his scheduled start time, played two songs and then stomped off the stage and into a waiting limo. Guess the poor fella was cold.

The Story of Bouncy and Fish

2006-12-18T17:49:00.001-05:00

One day, I decided to visit the Park on my day off. A friend was in town and we had no other plans, so why not? First stop, the bungee tower. We put on our harnesses and climbed to the top. There were two jumpmasters* working at the time, but patrons from three weight classes had been sent to the top.

There were a total of 5 weight classes, each named for the color of elastic used to make the cords: Pink (80-120lbs), Blue (121-140 lbs), Green (141-180 lbs), Orange (181-220), and Black (221-260lbs). Greens and Blues were the most common weight classes, and we would rotate the other three cords based on demand.

Since I had to wait my turn, I thought I'd be helpful and jump the woman waiting for third weight class. Her name was Bouncy. She was an Orange. While setting up the cord, I introduced myself and made small talk with the woman. People tended to get very nervous while waiting to jump, so it was always best to try to be as reassuring as possible. My conversation with Bouncy went something like this:

Bouncy: "Therese, have you done this before?"
Therese: "Sure, I do it every day!"
Bouncy: "Really? Doesn't it hurt your coochie?"
Therese: "No, Bouncy. I can honestly say that it's never hurt my coochie."
Bouncy (yelling to her sister on the ground): "Yo, Fish! Fish! I asked if this was gonna hurt my clit and she said NO!!!"

So over the edge Bouncy went. As she was, er, bouncing, she looked up at me and hollered, "Therese, you were right! It don't hurt the clit at all!!!!"

Sigh. Did I mention it was my day off?

*the top attendant, responsible for sending the patrons over the edge. Literally.

No Fear

2006-12-11T23:07:00.000-05:00

Part of the bungee tower mythology was that the guys who wore the "No Fear" t-shirts (second most-hated t-shirt after Big Johnson and Co-ed Naked Anything) had the highest walk-down rate. I don't know if it's true, but we liked to say so.

Working bungee was probably the best gig at the park. (Though my friend Dana was a jungle girl in the Tarzan show and got to wear a boa constrictor. You'd have to ask her about that one. Anyway.) One part I liked was checking out the tattoos. One guy had the names of 12 different women on him. I kept cross-referencing his date's ID with the guy's ink to see how she ranked. (Her name was written in small letters near his wrist, incidentally. I guess she was new.)

But what I loved the most was watching the men psyche each other up for the big jump. Sometimes they did it with manly high-fives and sometimes they did it with playful accusations that the jumper was just a big piece of female genitalia. Boys will be boys.

My favorite exchange went like this:
Jumper #1: Nick.
Jumper #2: Sup.
Jumper #1: Represent, yo.
Jumper #2: No doubt.

I learned that "Represent, yo" almost directly translated to mean, "Jump bravely from this bungee tower, so we can tell the people of Queens, New York of your intrepid act."

Or something like that.

Mark B and the Importance of Recycling

2006-12-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

It's funny how, years later, the Park is still very much a part of my life. None of my other jobs are like that. Sure, I keep in touch with people I met while toiling for one company or another, but this is different. I'm not entirely sure if it's because I worked there while young and impressionable, or what. Probably not, because I also worked at the A&P around the same time and I never feel the urge to tell funny stories about Life in the Supermarket. And no one from the A&P has ever called me up to share stories about our former co-workers. Like my friend Mike did recently. Without even pausing to say hello, he launched into the details of his latest Mark B sighting.

But before I get into the story, let me take this opportunity to explain who Mark B is. Mark B is developmentally disabled. Highly functioning, but developmentally disabled nonetheless. He worked on the Alpine Slide. He usually held the chairs at the bottom of the lift so they wouldn't smack the patrons in the ass when they sat down. Or he would stand at the top ride area and instruct the patrons to follow the large arrow painted on the ground when stepping off the chair lift. He was well suited to these tasks.

He also had a 'radio station' in his house. As far as I could figure it, that meant he had a microphone hooked up to his stereo so he could sing along to the music he was listening to. And that music was usually Sesame Street-related. One of his favorites was The Opposite Song.* It's a catchy number. Everyone in Alpine Center caught Opposite Fever. As far as I can recall, it was the only song ever performed over the parkwide 2-way radio frequency.

Most importantly, he was a vehement recycler. He would make the rounds to all the offices in the Park (and later, area post offices) collecting their cardboard and empty bottles, which he would then take to the recycling center. Didn't matter if you were saving the boxes to use later or if you weren't quite finished with your beverage.

Which leads me back to Mike's phone call. He ran into Mark while visiting the current incarnation of the Park with his family. He was holding an empty water bottle. Mark B tried to take it from him to recycle, but Mike resisted. He tried to tell Mark B that he wasn't finished with the bottle- he was going to refill it later. Because he, too, is environmentally conscious. And also cheap. A battle of wills ensued. Mike eventually prevailed. I think.

In the end it really doesn't matter who won. I just wanted to tell you all about Mark B. And sing the Opposite Song. "I go up! (UP!) And you go down! (DOWN!) I travel in a straight line, you round and round! (ROUND AND ROUND!)"

*As found on Sesame Street: Born to Add. You can hear a snippet here.

I Once Saw a Frenchman's Testicles

2006-11-20T13:07:00.000-05:00

True story. It was in the ice cream shop--more loss of innocence.

In the early 90s, the preferred style of shorts was, well, not very short. Therefore, to be contrary, the Park decreed that we must wear what could be described as hot pants, and I swear, they we partially made out of paper. My friend, Kerry, used to describe said uniform as "soul-crushing." She wasn't wrong. These things were short and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to wear and uncomfortable to watch someone else wear, as we shall soon see.

Anyhoo.

I mentioned the Brit, right? The poor exchange student who was bamboozled into near slavery at an American water park? So the Brit had friends--other foreigners who'd visit Fitzgerald's on their breaks for free ice cream. Together the Brit and the other foreigners would lament being stuck in podunk America, and plot how they could illegally get some beer, which was perfectly within their rights at home. Seriously, these poor guys.

My favorite was the French guy. Let's call him "Antoine." Antoine would come by for ice cream and I'd practice my 9th grade French on him. "Je m'appelle Melissa. J'ai quatorze ans." He thought I was adorable. He'd visit often.

During one visit, Antoine was tired and decided to set a spell. He hopped up on the counter, which didn't matter because we never had customers, anyway. As he was plotting, "Ah got a ride to zee leeker store; zees weel be zee beegest party," he pulled up his legs and hugged his knees.

And there they were. Balls. French balls.

And where does one look when one is 14 and has never seen a set of grown-up, hairy balls--not to mention grown-up, hairy, foreign balls? Oh, it was terrible! I couldn't look and I couldn't NOT look. I was so uncomfortable and self-conscious and terribly afraid of ever sitting in the shorts again for fear of displaying my unmentionables! What to do?

I scooped him some ice cream.

Being for the Benefit of the Nondescript Family-of-Four

2006-11-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

The stories of how the deregulation of King Gene's empire influenced the safety and well-being of patrons and employees alike could easily fill volumes of virtual space. I too suffered burns on the job at the hands of mismanagement, as a minor, but was fortunate enough to be sent to First Aid (but had to find my own ride home- with my parents out-of-town and no such policy on parental notification). The first aid attendant bandaged my second-degree burns, and, with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, advised me that, "if it gets worse, you should probably see a doctor."

Little did I know that this first experience with the Park's esteemed emergency services would lead me to a lifelong career in the healthcare field.

But first, I had to pay my dues.

I was hired to work the Park's First Aid Department fresh out of EMT school and couldn't wait to spend my summers riding around in those golf carts that, as a lowly F&B grommet, I always saw the EMTs driving while I slaved away behind the grease-fire grills. Uniforms emblazoned "EMT;" tending to the Aqua Skoot wounded; copping a peek at the misfortunes of teenage girls that searched franticly in the Surf Hill lanes for their bikini tops? This was definately the job for me.

But as it turned out, every day was a mass casualty incident.

As had been reported in Weird NJ, patron-controlled attractions and unabated alcohol consumption proved to be strange bedfellows- sometimes resulting in the utter hilarity of human stupidity, other times in the tragedy of collateral damage for some nondescript family-of-four that had to find their way to the local podunk Emergency Department because their kid was run over by a drunken alpine slider. Hundreds of people were maimed here, every week. I learned more in three summers at the Park then in four year of nursing school.

Downgrading of severity of injuries by First Aid management was commonplace to keep their statistics under the radar of the Department of Health. One day you would resuscitate someone (a code "red [really bad]" and come in the next day to find out it was downgraded to a code "green [bumps and bruises- but hey, you'll be OK]") Some days you treated so many people so quickly it was hard to even get their names. Other days you had time to play games with the patrons.

Our favorite was called "the Box." Patrons would come in to FA with abrasions (sometimes head-to-toe) from the Alpine Slide. Picture rugburn at 40 mph. In the infinite wisdom of our vocationally trained management, the best treatment for this injury was a spray called tincture of thimerisol (a combination of iodine and mercury, but hey, what don't kill ya [right away] only makes ya stronga). This stuff burned like the goddamn bejayzus, or so I was told by everyone who received it. It burned so bad, people ran around FA, sometimes screaming, often running out the doors into the GS lot.

Did I mention that First Aid was right next to the dumpsters and grease traps?

So we invented this game. We painted a 2 foot by 2 foot box on the floor in First Aid, and told patrons that if they could stand and remain in it while we hosed them down with this pink shit, they would win a prize. Most of these patrons, being drunk and male, were up for the sport. In three summers, after treating literally thousands of people with "Alpine Abrasions," only once did someone actually stay in the box. Imagine our shock and subsequent concern when we realized that we had never actually come up with a contingency plan to award a prize for this feat. The best we could produce on-the-spot was a Park pen. Boy, was he pissed.

But in the end, I will always look back with fond memories on my days at the Park. To this day I still have a close bond with colleagues from FA that can only be described as similar to that of people that have lived through some of the most shocking and horrible human tragedies. We fended off wild Latino mobs after they were disgraced by a pummeling from the resident jouster. Punched in the face by a Biggie-sized black woman as I tried to stabilize her boyfriend's dislocated shoulder. Patting down someone's scalp after an unfortunate "meeting" with the bottom roller of the Aqua Skoot.

But to put all the joking and sarcasm aside, it was always sad to see some family whose $200 day was ruined in part because the Park's management did not put the time or effort into providing a safe, quality environment for people to enjoy themselves. Whether I was an instrument of the Park's machine, or provided some semblance of compassion and reason (I hope the latter), we were all perishable resources that the Park consumed with a voracity that has only been matched by the New King of Hardyston's penchant for building golf courses and townhouses.

//Tom

The Importance of Protective Covering

2006-11-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

Like Melissa, my first job at the Park was in the Food & Beverage Department. It was one of the only departments that would hire a 14-year-old.* And believe me when I tell you, you don't want your lunch made by a bunch of bored 14-year-olds. And you REALLY don't want to eat anything that came out of the deep fryer. When it got slow, we would amuse ourselves by throwing things into the oil to see what would happen. It was like science class but, you know, stupid. Plastic cups? They became frisbees! Whee! Loose change? Boy, it sure is fun to throw hot quarters onto the floor for unsuspecting Park patrons to pick up!

On rainy days, most of us would be sent home. But sometimes, management would keep some of us around for projects that couldn't really be completed during normal operating hours. One such day, my friend Emily, a senior(!) named Chris and I were dispatched to Papa's Pizza with some rubber gloves, a bottle of mysterious pink stuff and instructions to clean the ovens. Simple enough. But that pink stuff was probably supposed to be diluted, or something. Despite the rubber gloves, we all ended up with chemical burns on our forearms. Management's response? Wash it off. Then take the rest of the afternoon off. (No hospital, no incident report, I don't remember even going to First Aid.) So Chris drove us to the Dairy Queen and then we spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the Festival Tent, drinking wine coolers we stole from the stock room. Woo!

*The others being Parking and General Services. Neither of which was an appealing option for me. Stand in the parking lot all day? Bor-ing. Pick up garbage and clean public bathrooms? Grody.

Ice Cream, Light Bulbs, and the Loss of Innocence

2006-11-04T19:05:00.000-05:00

My first job at the Park was in Fitzgerald's Ice Cream Shop in Cobblestone Village. It boasted a broken waterwheel and a sign that advertised homemade ice cream with Belgian waffles. We had neither. There was a constant influx of optimistic guests who really thought they might get a fresh, hot Belgian waffle with vanilla ice cream melted on top. Sounds good, doesn't it? I had to tell them that we were "fresh out." It was June and it was my first job. At 14, I did what the 18 year-old supervisor told me to do. For a while, at least.

One time, a customer claimed that she was "seriously pissed" not be getting a waffle. This disturbed my co-worker, a disappointed British exchange student who had come to "see America," or New York City, at least. It turned out that just getting a ride to the A&P was a big deal for him. Anyway, my Brit friend, being a Brit, took "pissed" to mean "drunk," and thought we'd have this reeling, beer-soaked wench screeching about waffles. Alas, no. But we chuckled over the language barrier.

The summer went on without incident. Other than the waffle controversy, and the fact that I was feeling increasingly guilty about the "fresh out" lies, things weren't bad and I was an obedient little food&bev girl. And then.

The skies opened one evening in August and we had a rush of campers in the shop. They were shivering and soaked, but they wanted ice cream. I was madly scooping when a flourescent bulb in the ice cream case burst, sending shards of glass and some powdery substance into the open containers of butter pecan, vanilla, and chocolate. I called over my 18 year-old supervisor.

"We need more ice cream. A bulb burst into the case," I told him.
"Scrape off the top and serve it. We don't have time."
"No, you don't understand. There's glass in the ice cream."
"And I'm telling you to scrape off the top and serve it." He gave me a threatening stare. It was the threatening stare that did it. Because while he attempted to intimidate me, I realized that I wasn't intimidated. My "boss" was just a kid, and a stupid kid at that.

"If you want these children to eat glass," I announced, "then you serve it to them." And I thrust the scoop into his hand.
One of the counselors overheard us. "There's glass in the ice cream?" she asked.
"Yes, Ma'am. You may just want to go get pizza next door," I told her.
"How about you just give me a waffle with no ice cream?" she asked. Silence.
"Ma'am," I replied, glaring at my supervisor, "I have never even seen a waffle in this place."

It all started with Wikipedia

2006-11-02T18:54:00.000-05:00

Actually, that's not true. It all started when I was 14 and dissatisfied with my meager allowance. But we'll get to that later. For the purposes of this blog, it all started with Wikipedia. Specifically, this article.

Now, I used to work at the park in question. As did most of my friends. And while most of what was written in the article was probably true, or at least true to those who wrote the article, it really didn't cover my experience. Which was singular. And universal at the same time. It was nothing if not a giant contradiction. Which I will try to distill here. Hopefully, with the help of some of my friends who were there with me. They're the only ones who would want to read it anyway.