I am working in Winter Haven this week.
Over 20 years ago I stayed
at the Lake Roy Motel
with my parents,
a friend
and an 18' ski boat.
The great part of the motel
is that it is on the
Chain Of Lakes
which is connected to the lake
where Cypress Gardens
once put on their ski shows.
We knew the showtimes
and would all jump in the boat
and ride over to watch
from the water.
After the show
we would put on
one of our own.
At the time I was
pretty good on skis
and imitating the
tricks from the show
was a lot of fun...
... especially since
I was the only one
in the boat that
enjoyed skiing.
My visit this time is
purely business
but I am finding time
to explore.
In the quiet just before sunrise
I drove out to a wooden dock on Lake Elbert
and enjoyed watching the world wake.
At dinner time
I walked,
rather than drove,
to a restaurant
to eat.
I dined al fresco
and chose to face east
and watched as the sunset
quietly colored the clouds.
On the walk back to the hotel
I passed Cypress Gardens.
It sits rusting
silently behind fences.
I stood and watched the
empty roller coaster,
the dried out water slides,
and rest of the colorful,
but closed,
amusements.
Many years ago
I asked a professional violinist
if I could play her violin.
She would not let me because,
she said,
"the wood remembers."
My squeals, squeaks and squawks
would echo forever in the wood.
So, as I stood there
outside of the silent
Cypress Gardens
I listened closely for the echoes
of pleasantly terrified screams,
shouts, hoots and hollers,
intermixed with music and laughter.
Yes, laughter.
The wood remembers.
Addendum:
It is 3:21am. I normally sleep well: my head hits the pillow and then the alarm goes off. Sometimes there are dreams in between, sometimes not.
When I checked into my hotel room I noticed a lap desk displayed comfortably on the bed. I quickly moved it to a table in the corner of the room and couldn't understand why the hotel would provide a lap desk when there was a full sized desk and office chair in the room.
So, I am sitting here, in the middle of the night, propped up in bed by a dozen pillows with the lap desk and my laptop. I think I now understand.
I probably don't need to tell you that roller coasters make terrible bed partners. Being constructed of nothing but ribs, bony knees and pointy elbows is uncomfortable but their inability to just lay still makes sleeping with them impossible.
I am awake at this hour because the roller coaster will not let me be. It keeps elbowing me and asking (pleading with me?) to tell you.
Will you tell them what it was like? Before.
And, with little choice, I will relay to you what that coaster wants to say. Then, maybe, it will let me catch a few more hours of sleep.
The sidewalk that runs outside of the park is not dirty, just dis-used. The grass has creeped into the cracks and there are discards that would never have been there when the old wooden coaster lived and breathed.
Back then, the sidewalk was awakened every morning to the hurrying run-aheadness of little feet. No grass could possibly grow beneath the back-and-forthing of children as they urged their parents to hurry, hurry.
The sidewalk would never feel the evening's retreat of those same little feet as the little sleepers were unknowingly strolled on soft rubber tires back to car seats and then carried, exhausted, to waiting motel rooms.
Yes, yes, the coaster tells me, that was good but tell them more. Tell them about grease and butter.
The breeze still carries the sweet, warm-oveny smell of popcorn glistening with butter and beneath that sweetish scent is something heavy, metallic, and moving.
I am being urged to get you seated before I tell more.
So, step right up. And stand taller. The sign says forty-two inches and you look to be no taller than thirty-nine. The coaster knows the excitement you feel and it knows that part of the thrill is getting past the ticket man.
The sign is right there, at the entrance. You have to pass between the ticket man and that red line a few inches above your head. You are next! Stand tall!
But, when you approach, the coaster lets out a single mis-timed clack. As the ticket man looks aside briefly, you push your ticket into his hand and double-step your way onto the line.
You are in!!!
And the coaster smiles because it knows that you, more than anyone who is taller than forty-two inches, will appreciate all that he has planned for you.
Those feet that pattered in this morning are now tap-tapping in the line. You made it through and now...
well,
maybe there is a reason that you have to be forty-two inches. Maybe thirty-nine inches isn't tall enough. Maybe thirty-nine inches will slide out under the safety bar.
They make rules for a reason...
Maybe you should go back and tell the ticket man that you are not forty-two inches.
No one can blame you if you
tried to ride but they wouldn't let you...
The coaster relishes this indecision. It has felt it thousands of times from children and adults. And, most often, from adolescent boys trying to reassure adolescent girls that it is not as scary as it might seem. Their unconvincing reassurances nothing more than masks on their own trepidations - and a nice way to segue into holding her hand.
You look ahead on the line counting the people trying to calculate where you will be. You have heard that the front is best because you see everything but you have also heard that the back is best because it moves faster than the front.
The coaster knows that the excitement of each seat: left, right, front, back, and it knows that it will not matter where you sit, the thrill will be the same.
And while you thought about all of these things the line crept forward and now it is your turn. The attendant looks at you and you instinctively stretch your back trying desperately to appear three inches taller.
He motions you to the next empty seat, midway back.
Good, thinks the coaster, just where he needs to be...
The first thing you notice is that there are no seat belts. There is only a bar that falls onto your lap. And it does not fall very far onto your lap, it is barely touching your knees. If you had been forty-two inches tall you would have more holding you in...
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...
...and then you notice that there is no door. Just an open space beside you!
The teenager sitting next to you has a wall next to him but you have nothing!
This is where the coaster wanted me to get you before I told you about the smell of grease.
You are there, all nerves firing warning shots to your brain, sweat breaking out on your forehead and hands, and a conviction that this was the stupidest thing you have ever done. Your parents, watching you from the fenceline, will witness your bloody fate. They will cry at the tragedy of losing you before your eleventh birthday which is only three months away.
The coaster sends the first scent of metal to you. An iron-clad smell that triggers thoughts of big machines.
Then it sends the smell of ozone from metal wheels sparking on the iron tracks.
And then, underneath but coming up quickly is a slicky sweet smell of thick, black grease. It fills your nose and is so thick it is almost choking you...
... when the car you are seated in lurches forward! Only for an instant.
The coaster knows the ways to set it up for you and it is using every one. The next thing it needs to do is to provide something audible so it turns up the volume on the rhythmic clacking of the drive chain.
You hear it and it becomes an almost deafining clunk-chick, clunk-chick, clunk-chick. Then, suddenly, there is an anvil-like sound, a jolt and the car you are in glides forward.
This is just another way for the coaster to place you off balance. You weren't expecting smooth so that is what it delivered as the car glides down and around to place you at the bottom of the first hill.
The smoothy, glidey, rolly feeling is rudely replaced with a jerky, clockwork motion as the car clack-steps to the top of the hill.
This is the part that the coaster likes the best. Sure, it enjoys the ticklish sreaming of the first descent but it much prefers setting you up for that fall. It knows that it can play the same "taller" game with you that you played with the ticket man.
You look at the track ahead and realize that it doesn't end. It keeps going!
You grip the bar in front of you with sweaty, white-knuckled determination and turn your head - NO! not toward the open doorway beside you! The other way!!!
You look at your progress and are convinced that the coaster has stretched itsef taller and that it is still stretching even higher as you ride upward.
And then...
... silence.
You have reached the top and the car sits,
quietly,
waiting,
for what seems
like forever,
before it lurches
downward
leaving you
and your insides
at the top...
There is more to tell but the coaster will let me wait for another day to finish the stories.
I apologize for any errors in this post and will correct them later...
Good night/morning.
