Office Politics

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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????

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.