“I’m a carny from way back.” ~Sarah McCarroll (my sister speaking to a Carny, Tannersville Carnival, 2007)
Summer in the Poconos means it’s carnival season. If you’re not from around these parts, carnivals are low rent amusement parks only with more danger and less class. They’re usually sponsored by volunteer fire departments. My people and I have been going for years. Ever since I can remember.
For those of you who are thinking my friends and I are a bunch of carnival-going hicks, this isn’t usual behavior for my friends. In fact, I never see anyone I know at these events. I see people I know at bars, concerts, art walks, festivals, movies, the theater, but never at Carnivals. So, I’m just guessing the penchant for cotton candy and outdoor bingo is a peculiarity with my family. What I’m saying is that my friends are clean.
Now that’s out of the way… I was at a carnival the other evening with my sister Sarah, her best friend Jen in from Ohio, my mom, and 6 kids, ages 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, and 6. The four older ones wanted to ride in the dragon belly, and I went with them. We were escorted ever so regally by a friendly carny with more teeth than most, coke bottle glasses, and a starter beer belly. The five of us were sharing the dragon belly with 3 little kids who were already in there, two 4 year-olds and a 3 year-old, I’m guessing.
Take a second and imagine this. I’m squished in a dragon belly with 7 little kids, 3 of whom I don’t know. Since I’m the adult I feel as if it’s my duty to alert them to the fact that the inside of the dragon creates an echo. We all start hooting to hear ourselves hoot.
I then ask everyone if they know that this ride spins. (There is a metal table in the middle of the dragon belly that’s attached to the spoke the dragon sits on. When you turn the wheel, the dragon turns.) Everyone is clear about this. I ask if they’re afraid to go fast. They say no. Owen declares that the green dragon, the one we’re in, is the good dragon, and the blue dragon, the one we can see, is the bad dragon. So, we’re set. We have an enemy!
The ride begins. All hands are on the table. We get to spinning. We scream. We spin. We scream. We spin. We scream. I grab the wheel and reverse the spinning action. We whip around the other direction. Screams and laughter all around.
But the change of direction makes my stomach flip so I check the little kid faces for any sign of nausea. The one boy I don’t know looks iffy. I watch him for a minute. His eyes are glassy. He looks a little stunned. He’s staring at nothing. Then I see him say, so quietly that I mostly have to read his lips, “that was awesome.”
Sweet. He was just filled with the thrill of a new sensation. And, of course, he was right, that was awesome!
michael said,
July 21, 2007 at 12:55 pm
That kid’s going to skydive one day. I hope you feel good about yourself, because you’ve just created yet another thrill-seeker!
I want to ride the dragon ride.
Gary said,
July 21, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I’m looking forward to seeing my son ride on the mini bikes that go around and round and up and down while Bon Jovi cranks… if they still have those things down the shore. I’m also looking forward to the West End Fair. Lots of bizzare shit to see there. While we’re their we can pick out some tombstones.
Jim said,
July 21, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I’m looking forward to watching my kid sabotage an antimatter reactor flooding the atmosphere with neutrons causing the earth to be temporarily uncoupled from the magnetosphere so I can sit back and enjoy the light show caused by the inevitable catastrophic magnetic reconnection that follows.
Damn kids…
Sissy said,
July 21, 2007 at 8:34 pm
My kids are in no way as adventurous as I am. The four-year old stopped three rides at Hershey park this winter, one of them being the pirate ship upon which she had one leg over the side ready to jump. I took the 10-year-old to Morey’s Peir this spring where she sat on a park bench while I repeated rode the scary roller coaster. She stood in line for the water flume and then retracted when she saw there were no seatbelts in the log cars. And the eight-year-old, when on the dragon belly ride, fell off her seat and endured the ride on the floor of the dragon, so she’s out do to post tramatic carnival ride syndrome.
Sissy said,
July 21, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Best roller coaster in the world: The Cyclone on Coney Island
Gary said,
July 21, 2007 at 9:21 pm
My brother Ken took me to Great Adventure once and forced me to go on the scariest rides. I was glad afterward that he did. He also “made” me learn to ski and I’m glad about that too. I needed to be pushed.
MamaPeg is Watching You said,
July 22, 2007 at 8:08 am
I was always afraid to go on the loopy roller coasters. About 7 years ago, we were in Disneyworld and I went on the Aerosmith ROCKnROLLercoaster. I figured it was Disney so it had to be safe… And I was right.
Now I’m not a-scared of the loopy ones.
Our church has an annual carnival. This year they changed companies and a new group of carnies came… they had all their teeth and were cellphone savvy. They still probably bathed in the dunk tank tho!
Jenn said,
July 22, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Just so you know, Disney is responsible for the Small World ride, so I think that negates any claim to safety they might have had.
I love rides. Love love love rides The bigger, the faster, the scarier, the better. Love them. Unfortunately for me, I married a man that gets nauseous looking at a merry go round and cannot ride on anything that goes back and forth or side to side, which eliminates almost every ride there is. He did ride on the Sidewinder at Hershey with me one year and spent the next six hours complaining that his neck hurt.
I love roller coasters, and I had this friend once that was obsessed with them. We spent 2 summers going to as many amusement parks in a 3 hour radius as we could find, and riding the roller coasters over and over. We did the Laser (I think it was called that) in Dorney something like six times in a row until the attendant wouldn’t let us ride it any more because we couldn’t stand up straight. We rode the front car of the Great American Scream machine at Great Adventure (and the free fall ride – I freaking love that thing).
There was one ride at Hershey that I can’t remember for the life of me what it was called, but it was basically rotating cars attached to an arm. The cars swung around and rotated, the arm carried the cars around a center hub and then the cars would go up the air as the arms went vertical. At any given point during the ride, you could find your car spinning around and putting you in a nose dive towards the ground. It was awesome.
And I still remember when I was a kid and the Sooperdooperlooper was the most awesome coaster ever, and everyone who rode it bought the tee shirt that said “I survived the sooperdooperlooper.”
julieluongo said,
July 22, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Once, I went to Hershey and we went thru the chocolate factory first and had sundaes at the end. Then we went into the park and rode on a spinny ride. I was sick all day and didn’t ride on anything else. Then we went to a Rod Stewart concert at night. Whew, that was not the best day.
When I lived in San Diego, I used to ride the coaster in Mission Beach every day I could manage it. It was right in town, pretty close to my place. I loved that ride:
http://www.family-vacation-getaways-at-los-angeles-theme-parks.com/images/BelmontParkCoaster.gif
Jenn said,
July 22, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Prepping for a day at an amusement park is similar to prepping for a night of drinking. You have to be careful what you eat and lay down a good base so you don’t puke, and make sure you stay hydrated. And it’s best not to do it with people that annoy you because someone can get hurt pretty quickly.
I love the chocolate factory ride, but we always save that till the end.
Jenn said,
July 22, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Oh, and I saw Tom Petty in Hershey once. On a Sunday night, after having seen him the Saturday night before at Montage. The funny thing is there was a group of guys sitting near us on Saturday night that showed up again right near us on Sunday as well. They were cool – they shared their pot.
Hershey is a long, long drive back to Philadelphia at night.
julieluongo said,
July 22, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Did I go to that Hershey show with you?
Sarah said,
July 22, 2007 at 9:11 pm
At the carny, one of the workers found a little tiny remnant of a joint and screamed with excitement holding it up in the air while running to her friends, “Look what I found!!!!”, and did all of this right in front of a cop! She seriously ran right in front of him only 5 feet away. THEN she saw him but it was too late. He didn’t bust her.
Thanks for going to the carnival with us! It was soooo much fun. I was peeing my pants looking at you in that dragon with those seven little kids.
julieluongo said,
July 23, 2007 at 12:26 am
I was the queen of cool at the carny hanging with the shorties.
Jen said,
July 23, 2007 at 10:52 am
Sasha was so mad at me for not letting her try to win a goldfish at that carnival that she said “When I finish college, I’m moving to PA and going to fireman carnivals every weekend to win fish!”
It was awesome to see you – that it was at a carnival was just a great bonus!
Jenn said,
July 23, 2007 at 11:44 am
I don’t think you went to the Hershey show with us. That might have been the one following the Montage show we went to, but I think you had something else going on on Sunday and couldn’t go, so I dragged Jeff along.
julieluongo said,
July 23, 2007 at 12:20 pm
At least Sasha didn’t say that when she turned 18 she was skipping college and joining the carnival so she could run the feeder fish booth.