How not to ride a chair lift.

Radio, Radio

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

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.