Remember kids, always wear sunscreen.

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)

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

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.

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.