I'm not a big fan of amusement parks. This isn't to say I would never go to one again, they're just not my cup of tea. I feel like I'm not letting myself get a full experience of the place, which is my own doing of course. Outside of the food and random test-your-skill games, I don't really do anything other than people watch and wishing I was just sitting in solitude somewhere, gnawing on a big ol' turkey leg or deep-fried something or other.
My first experience on a roller coaster was at the Great Escape in Lake George, New York. I was seventeen, on some dumb end of the school year field trip. The name of the roller coaster was either the Screamin' Demon, Steamin' Demon, or Steaming Pile of Demon Crap. I'm sure it's still there, because who doesn't love coasters that have withstood roughly thirty brutal winters. At the time it was the biggest roller coaster in the park, so naturally to impress some girl I decided to wait in line for a ride. I was both unsure and nervous about the whole thing. The scariest ride I had been on prior to this one was something called the Seahorse. It swung like a pendulum, swinging higher and higher and at angles people generally should not be swinging. It was awful, and mostly due to the fact I had no idea what the Seahorse actually did. While it may look fairly obvious, I was just a kid, hopelessly naive to my surroundings.
With the Steaming Pile of Demon Crap, you knew what it did. Its track was all right there in front of you. You see where it inches higher and higher, where it loops around, and where cars bank, tilting into the helix. For some reason, I thought this was all perfectly fine. What could possibly happen, I slip through the safety beam across my lap hundreds of feet up in the sky, plummeting to my doom? I would indeed suck it up for the chance at teenage love.
Upon my scrawny (at the time) frame slinking into the car seat, I didn't become so nervous for myself as I was for my glasses. I was concerned all those loops and twists and turns would shoot them right off my face and launch them into the great beyond below. So, I took them off my face, folded them up, and slid them in my shorts pocket. Shortly after, the car started climbing that first hill and the rest of the ride was just a blur. And that's because the ride actually was a blur, for me. I'm practically blind, so taking off the glasses I couldn't see a damn thing. One simple and yet safe decision had ruined the experience for me. That and the physics really mangled my neck muscles.
My first experience on a roller coaster was at the Great Escape in Lake George, New York. I was seventeen, on some dumb end of the school year field trip. The name of the roller coaster was either the Screamin' Demon, Steamin' Demon, or Steaming Pile of Demon Crap. I'm sure it's still there, because who doesn't love coasters that have withstood roughly thirty brutal winters. At the time it was the biggest roller coaster in the park, so naturally to impress some girl I decided to wait in line for a ride. I was both unsure and nervous about the whole thing. The scariest ride I had been on prior to this one was something called the Seahorse. It swung like a pendulum, swinging higher and higher and at angles people generally should not be swinging. It was awful, and mostly due to the fact I had no idea what the Seahorse actually did. While it may look fairly obvious, I was just a kid, hopelessly naive to my surroundings.
With the Steaming Pile of Demon Crap, you knew what it did. Its track was all right there in front of you. You see where it inches higher and higher, where it loops around, and where cars bank, tilting into the helix. For some reason, I thought this was all perfectly fine. What could possibly happen, I slip through the safety beam across my lap hundreds of feet up in the sky, plummeting to my doom? I would indeed suck it up for the chance at teenage love.
Upon my scrawny (at the time) frame slinking into the car seat, I didn't become so nervous for myself as I was for my glasses. I was concerned all those loops and twists and turns would shoot them right off my face and launch them into the great beyond below. So, I took them off my face, folded them up, and slid them in my shorts pocket. Shortly after, the car started climbing that first hill and the rest of the ride was just a blur. And that's because the ride actually was a blur, for me. I'm practically blind, so taking off the glasses I couldn't see a damn thing. One simple and yet safe decision had ruined the experience for me. That and the physics really mangled my neck muscles.
I think a lot about how this country (or maybe the world in general) is falling more and more into separate little compartments of opinions and facts. How we have somehow managed to blur the lines between the two that nothing really matters anymore. The echo chamber culture is a very real thing. Sometimes, it's a perfectly fine concept. I have friends who only post on their social media content regarding their careers and hobbies. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously. To be able to maintain such focus amid the clusterfuck of nonsense we read about daily in the public eye is just incredible. Our country's current political climate, whatever slop the internet has turned into, and our ratings-obsessed media have piqued the flame of madness. It is setting such a low-bar standard that I'm concerned there's no turning back in my lifetime. What should be considerably serious Congressional testimony has turned into middle school recess, with grown adults slinging insults and degrading one another. A wannabe autocrat more concerned with his brand and image than ensuring the slogan he made China sew onto red hats. The echo chamber of his cult is both toxic and brings what America has always been right out into the open - keeping the marginalized restrained, and keeping paid-for shills and talking heads in charge.
Shoving my glasses into my pocket for that ride offered up my own brief echo chamber. One which I couldn't see clearly. One which I couldn't enjoy the thrill and emotion of where I was being taken to. One which the joyful reactions of those around me who could see, left me wildly unaffected. By removing my glasses, the world around me is forever just one big blur.
In Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle, Walls sister Lori had their mother try on her glasses. The following exchange took place:
"Did you see better?" I asked.
"I wouldn't say better," Mom answered. "I'd say different."
"Maybe you should get a pair, Mom."
"I like the world just fine the way I see it," she said.