Age changes perspective on rides

To a kid from Sikeston, Mo., a trip to Six Flags over St. Louis is about as good as it gets.

Yes, there's Disney World, but how often does that happen? Maybe once a childhood. That's about all the average parent can afford or endure.

But Six Flags is just perfect. It's close to home, so there's only about two hours of "are we there yet are we there yet." The family car can get there on one tank.

There were several low-budget vacations to Six Flags in my childhood. We're talking two adults, five children in a motel room with two double beds and breakfasts of cereal consumed from individual boxes. (Did you know you can cut the cardboard a certain way and serve straight from the box? With milk!)

We're talking getting hand stamps so we could leave the park around noon and consume bologna sandwiches, Shasta-brand sodas and generic chips from a cooler in the back of the family station wagon.

We're talking staying at the park for at least seven hours to get our money's worth and then begging to stay later.

And I never understood why my parents tended to collapse on benches while we stood in line for roller coasters. "No, no, you kids go ahead," they'd say. We girls raced from line to line all day, not even minding our inevitable sunburns.

My last trip to Six Flags with the folks was when I was 18, just before I moved out on my own. On Saturday, 14 years later, I went back with The Other Half to see Sugar Ray, one of my favorite bands. And I finally understood my parents.

To see a concert at Six Flags, you have to pay the price of admission. I wasn't going to pay $26 each and then just see the concert -- in my mind, that wouldn't be getting our money's worth.

So we entered the park two hours early and assessed the rides. Mr. Half announced that he wouldn't be boarding any of the fun ones because "you know my stomach problems." (Read: "I'm petrified.") That was kind of a bummer right there.

Of course, the Colossus was OK because that's a weenie ride. So we did that first.

Then I tried to talk him into a ride that looks like an open-air trolley car. It swings like a pendulum to the left and right and then finally goes all the way over the top, about three stories up.

Mr. Half refused. "You go on it. I'll sit here on the bench," he said.

Mostly to show him how silly he was being, I got in line by myself. There was a sign right at the front. It said: (1) No single riders. (2) Due to the safety devices on this ride, some of our guests may not be able to board.

In other words: (1) You are alone. (2) You are fat. (3) Please go home and stop embarrassing yourself.

The high-school kid operating this gigantic piece of dangerous machinery started loading us up.

"I'm a single rider," I said. "Is that OK?"

He nodded. Ends up it's lucky I was alone, because only Twiggy could have fit in the space left after I wedged myself into the bench-type seat. I had a brief vision of the high-schooler asking me to get off because the "safety devices" wouldn't go over my gut.

Thankfully, the restraining bar snapped into place in front of me OK. The ride started swinging back and forth. For a moment, I was 13 and giddy again.

But then it went higher. And higher. The centrifugal force threw me against the side of my seat. My knuckles turned an impossible shade of white as I held onto the safety bar. I wanted to make the man stop the ride and let me off.

It finally ended. Mr. Half was waiting for me at the exit.

"How was it?" he asked.

"Wonderful!" I lied.

After that, we just saw Sugar Ray and then took a train ride around the park. That was my favorite. Other than sitting on the benches.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.