amusements

yesterday, i drove my first of the year charters to an amusement park in new jersey. as the weather has warmed the shift has moved from ski charters to amusement parks. it was a group of college students out to celebrate the absence from the end of the term and college life with noise, blaring music and screams. the caucophany greeted us from the parking lot. welcome to an early amusement park season in southern new jersey.
my fellow drivers and i wandered around seemingly in a daze for a few hours and though i had brought and eaten a light lunch, i began to search for food. i was succumbing to the pressures of the smells and sights and walking miles without being aware of how far you're walking. it got to me and my stomach was rumbling. the atmosphere in amusement parks demands that you walk for miles, exhaust yourself and then find food within a closed atmosphere. it leaves you with a feeling of a caged laboratory mouse forced to search the corners of the maze for the cheese and then stand on your head in order to press the button for the pellet. well, here it was much simpler, just bring an average of 50 dollars per person for the day and you can be kept in a stomach churning mixture of greasy, smelly sugary foods and drinks all day. no food or drink is allowed in from outside and thusly you have no choice other than to be subjected to a clumsy search and questioning as you trek the miles to get that soda left in the car and enter again. the smells of frying, twisted, baked, skewered and deep fried foods are everywhere wrapped in a facade of cuisine from time periods (the wild west...) to 'authentic' asian cuisine at the wok and roll. i was turned off by the 6 dollar slices of pizza and five dollar cotton candy and ice cream, but relented at the prospect of a simple cheeseburger, that all american favorite. i entered a stand actually entitled the all american burger. the various flavours and types of burgers were given a patriotic theme, the old glory, the gettysburger... the people manning the counter though were not who i was expecting. i had expected more pimply faced teens frying burgers on a dirty grill in back, maybe with a 50's themed soda jerk cap and red checked apron, but the people serving the pre-wrapped burgers were asian. like fries with that, like a drink? i was asked in heavily accented english. i did not object to being served a cheeseburger from people who were obviously new to the country, but it felt as though by buying this six dollar wopping pile of grease and cholesterol, that i was aiding in their abandonment of their native tongue, customs and language. these people were working on thier first green card in the country and this is what they were to glimpse upon in their first days and weeks and months here. welcome to america. land of opportunity, you too can work at an amusement park for 6 dollars an hour and be taught to master the complexities of the english language and the word 'fry.'
security is everywhere in form of blue clothed rent a cops growing their first 19 year old mustaches to the gates that are clumsily concealed through the park. more than once, a teenage deputy could be seen eyeing you suspiciously like a young columbo ready to pounce upon the terrorist who had chosen southern new jersey as their prime spot. never mind that we were directly overhead a flight path for jumbo jets. i wondered if the superman thrill coaster was a promising target. but the young sherriffs were also interested in doing what other young, hormonally filled boys like to do, watch the girls walking by. i'm not sure what they would or could do about a possible threat or even a mugging in the park, hop onto their golf carts to give chase? but for this opportunity to bask in the glow of amusements, i was forced to give up my right to carry my simple pipe tool. one end of the multitool is shaped vaguely like a dull butter knife and when put into the basket before traversing the metal detectors, i was told outright that this pipe tool/ weapon would not fly in the park. i walked it back out to my bus and briefly thought about dumping everything out of my pockets or even myself into the seat and staying until this nightmare were over. but on i went, complying and laughing at the situation. after all, i had to amuse myself, i had to get away from the bright, bright, bright world outside that is a plain facade of loud music, bright lights, glaring attractions and noisy commercials and lose myself in this plasticity of loud music, noises, screams and bright lights that wasn't as thrilling as any day on the new jersey turnpike or driving through manhattan.