Last call for mirrored halls

Feel the air outside. Getting a bit crisp at night, isn’t it? With autumn now divested of its back-to-school association, and all the gum-snapping, book-bags-and-Trapper-Keepers connotations that entails, I have to say, I’ve grown to love the season. Our air conditioning units can finally be given a rest, and if you don’t like pumpkin pies and Cortland apples, then you’ve obviously suffered some kind of traumatic head injury. Either that or you’re a Communist. Afraid those are the only two options.

 

But ring the alarm bells, folks. It also means time is running low if we’re ever going to make it to the amusement park.

 

Oh, sure, they’re not for everyone. Some people think of a roller coaster and remember the time in 6th grade they barfed on the Neck Snapper because they pre-loaded their gurgling belly with kiosk hot dogs that tasted like feet. Or they’re afraid of the pirate ship because it turns their innards into liquid poo. I get it. It took me until my teens before I was brave enough to attempt even the Excalibur at Funtown, and I only did it to impress a girl. Her admiration vanished when we made the first drop and I screamed loud enough to make all dogs within a five mile radius hurl themselves in front of the Amtrak.

 

Thing is, if you find yourself in the anti-amusement park camp, you’re sorely missing out. It’s only at such parks that you can eat a lump of fried dough the size of a trampoline and snap several of the vertebrae in your spine all within a five-hour window. These are exotic pleasures, and they have to be enjoyed before it’s cold enough to cut glass with your nipples.

 

A couple summers ago I was at a park in North Carolina called Carowinds, which dubs itself the “Thrill Capital of the Southeast,” probably because there’s not much going on in the southeast. Carowinds boasts an impressive selection of roller coasters, any of which could easily be registered as lethal weapons. A full half require bizarre bodily contortions just to board them, and you’re never quite sure in which direction you’ll be violently pulled – legs often dangling in a hanging configuration, always feeling like they’re about to be sheared off by a stray sheet of neon-colored metal. So of course I was hooked. Having gone with a fellow masochist, we each made it a point to hit as many of these contraptions as we could, which is the recreational equivalent of stuffing yourself in a washing machine programmed for a heavy load.

 

There’s a chance I’m not making this sound very appealing.

 

It totally was, though. Maybe you have to be a certain kind of person to appreciate it, but there’s something liberating about ceding control to a machine that looks like a giant caterpillar. The unpredictability of movement, the hard slap of a humid summer wind in your face – these things conspire to take one out of one’s self, to make a person forget about the worries of daily life. Bills? Gone. Rent? A distant memory. Heck, even that boil you need lanced takes second stage to the unique pleasure of hurtling through the air unnaturally, your spleen squashed snugly against the flattened coil of your lower intestine.

 

Conveniently enough, a typical amusement park has plenty of lower-octane attractions. Not everyone enjoys flying forcefully through exaggerated parabolas above asphalt parking lots. During childhood, when my cousin lived in New Hampshire, our families would make frequent visits to Canobie Lake Park in Salem – sort of an intermediate between Funtown and Six Flags, with the low-rent cartoon themes of the former and the over-the-top grandiosity of the latter. Our mothers, wanting desperately to hold onto their lunches, passed over the coasters in favor of more sedate offerings. This was fine by us. There was still plenty of mischief to be had in the low-adrenaline fare, and really, that’s what was important: The ability to ride that line between annoying our parents and ensuring they’d still pay for our Italian ice. Yeah, we were schmucks.

 

Schmucks love the hall of mirrors, apparently, because that’s where we’d frequently find ourselves. Fear was the appeal here. Despite park security providing a comforting safety net, there was always a vague sense that we’d become permanently lost, banging heads and shins against our reflected selves until the end of time. While I knew I’d eventually master the mirror-maze and emerge into daylight, the thought persisted that I’d come out on the other side a shriveled, malnourished old man, long beard and cane providing an odd counterpoint to my Spider-Man T-shirt and Kool-Aid mustache. Some days I felt like that’s exactly what would happen. You try to map out a route in your mind, but all focus is lost when you’re staring at a hundred different versions of yourself and listening to the breathless chatter of other kids, most of them jabbering in a high-pitched squeal that could snap the strings of a Stratovarius. The relief on our mothers’ faces was palpable when we stepped out of the exit, blinking in the harsh daylight. It felt like an accomplishment. And in a way, it was. We didn’t die! Time for more ice cream!

 

Maybe it’s that childhood connection which gives amusement parks their lasting appeal. Can someone ride the Tilt-A-Whirl for the first time as a 45-year-old and still get the same satisfaction from it? Perhaps not. There’s something about the whole concept – each park similar, but unique in their own way – that benefits from a specific lens of nostalgia, one that calls to mind all the haunted house rides, plastic Skee-ball prizes, and antique car jaunts of youth. Each ride is a time machine. That’s kinda cool.

 

Better hurry up if you’re going to make it, though. The top of the Ferris wheel will soon be one chilly place.