4/8/2002

Six Flags is open for the season again. For my daughter that means weekend after weekend of friends and rides and fun. For me, that means weekend after weekend of sitting and waiting for her and her buddies to come out at the end of the LONG day.

I was sitting there Sunday and waiting. And then I started noticing the people who were leaving (in droves, I might add)

I’m pretty sure there’s a poem in this somewhere …. but for tonight I’ll just leave you with the images of who and what I saw.

There was a geeky camera guy wearing soiled faded jeans, a striped shirt and a case for a VERY large lens slung across his shoulder. He stood there for quite a while waiting, I suppose, for the perfect shot of screaming people zooming by on whatever that purple and yellow roller coaster is there by the gate. He looked a little lonely and a little pathetic.

Then came Purple Monkeys and basketballs. There were Inflatable Smiley Faces galore (where’s a slingshot when you need it?). There were some really unusual dye jobs. I mean really unusual. Those colors do NOT appear in nature not even on a baboon’s butt!

There were parades of kids. Kids in strollers (why would ANYONE want to deal with stroller age kids at a roller coaster filled amusement park?) There were kids that would definately have loved to be in a stroller perched high on their dads’ shoulders, so tired that they were barely hanging on – to dad or to wakefulness. There were teenagers by the gajillion.

The clothes? Oh my. There were the confederate flag pants. Yes, the south WILL rise again. There were boobs and butts in abundance. Not nearly enough male butts though! And then there were shiny pink-purple jesters hats with jingle bells. It stood nearly as tall as the tiny girl who was wearing it.

Out came foam bats on leashes, bigger than life-size gray koalas, Violently pink huge tigers, terry cloth pastel bears wearing mardi gras beads, chartreuse and vivid blue angelfish, dragons in every color imagineable (and a few colors that NOBODY ever should have imagined).

And the people were plodding out exhausted,and whipped by all those rides that I wouldn’t go on for love or money. But still, there were those that managed to hold their noses high. Really. If all this was so beneath them, why did they come?

Fortunately for me, the girls came out just as the securitiy guard was telling me that I couldn’t wait in the same place that I’ve waited for three years to pick them up. Sigh. Rent-a-cops! By next weekend, they’ll have changed the policy again.

All that – in only 8 minutes. And I only scratched the surface!

Speaking of scratching….I’m gone for a few days – off to see the wizard in the magic land of Florida. Sun! Yay! Fun? I’ll reserve judgement. Let you know when I get back!

Keep writing – but not so much that I can’t keep up! I’ll try to stay connected…..but you know things get pretty funky in Oz sometimes.