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

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.   

Tequila Shoes

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.

And now for something completely different

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.

Lost!

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.

Home Alone

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!

Buckets of Beer and Touch Screen Trivia

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.

A Steve By Any Other Name

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.

A tale that is tangentially related to the Park

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.