Sometimes it takes 42 years to come full circle…

In June of 1971, a new theme park called Six Flags Over Mid-America opened in the small town of Pacific, Missouri, near St. Louis. It had old-fashioned car rides, a gondola ride, a log flume ride, river adventure ride, petting zoos, a train that went around the entire park, a roller coaster, and other attractions. A new theme park in 1971 was an incredibly exciting thing!

In July of 1971, my parents planned one of our rare summer vacations, and it was to be a trip to St. Louis.  It was to include staying at a Howard Johnson’s motel, which was terribly exciting, and trips to Grant’s Farm, The Gateway Arch, The St. Louis Zoo, a St. Louis Cardinals game, and a day at Six Flags were all on the agenda.  I was 6 years old, 5 months from turning 7, and couldn’t wait to see this new place called Six Flags.  I still remember a lot of details from that vacation.  Watching the workers at the St. Louis Zoo switch out train engines, going to the top of the Gateway Arch, seeing Grant’s Farm, Dad burning my arm with his cigar at the Cardinals game… and Six Flags.  The day at Six Flags was great fun, and I still have the park map from that day, as well as the hat I got there, with my name “Timmy” embroidered on the rim.

It was July 19th, 1971, and I was wound up tighter than an 8-day clock. I couldn’t wait to ride all the rides at Six Flags.  The place looked enormous to me, set off the highway against a ridge of tall hills, with a big water tower shaped like a barrel that said “Six Flags” that overlooked that whole place.  I’m not sure of the order in which we rode the rides.  On that old original map from that day, the rides we rode have an “X” on them, presumably noted by my mother, as she wrote the date on the map as well.  There is one ride that has a big X on it, The River King Mine Train, that is the subject of today’s story. It was the park’s one and only roller coaster at the time.

In my memory, I do not recall if I watched the people on the ride before getting on, but I know I begged my dad to let me ride it, to which he agreed.  In looking back on the event, I have to believe that by it’s name, I must have thought it was a train ride, and I must not have known it was a roller coaster, nor was I aware of how such a ride felt.

I recall that once we got on the ride, lap bar in place, and got out on the tracks, it did not take long for me to start telling Dad that I changed my mind, and I no longer wanted to ride this ride.  Of course at this point there was nothing anyone could do, and Dad just chuckled and said, “I can’t stop the ride.  You wanted to ride, so we just have to ride it out.”  I remember my pleadings turning into a full-blown screaming and crying fit, and I was horrified that I was stuck riding what seemed at the time to be a terrible ride. I wailed and screamed and cried through the whole thing, yelling “Daddy make it stop”. The last drop on the ride was the steepest, and I recall wailing through the whole thing and all the way into the station when it was done.

Mortified, Dad was through putting up with me and didn’t care to ride anything else with just me. I think he pawned me off on Mom at that point, and rode more adventurous rides with my older brother and sister.

Unfortunately from that point on, I found myself scared of riding roller coasters. I had convinced myself that they were terrible things and refused to ride anything that even seemed like a roller coaster. Even at Silver Dollar City near Branson, where in 1972 an indoor coaster called Fire in the Hole was opened, it took a long time for me to agree to ride it, and even then I didn’t enjoy it, but closed my eyes and got through it.

In 1973, another amusement park opened up, this time near Kansas City, called Worlds of Fun.  It had a few roller coasters when it opened, and when we went there around 1974 or ’75, I refused to ride the coasters, contenting myself to ride the kiddie rides with my younger sister, who was around 5 or 6 by that time, and I was about 10 years old.

I stayed safely away from roller coasters (except the occasional ride on Fire in the Hole) until at age 15 in 1980, when my brother decided to take the situation into his own hands.  We were planning to go to Kansas City that summer, and the trip included a day at Worlds of Fun, which was boasting a new coaster called the Orient Express, and it had 4 loops in it.  Doug said, “I’m going to break you of your fear of roller coasters. I want to ride the Orient Express, and YOU are going to ride it with me.”

To put it mildly, the whole idea scared the shit out of me. I woke up that morning, scared but a bit excited, because I didn’t really know how Doug was going to get me to enjoy coasters, and whether or not it was really going to work. When we got to the park, Mom and Dad took my younger sister to go ride some kiddie rides, and Doug and I were on our own for our coaster adventure.

We started out on a small carnival-type roller coaster, the kind that had small individual cars with two rows of seats in it.  After one ride, I enjoyed it a little, but not much.  Doug said, “I know what your problem is.  You are fighting it.  You’re pulling back on the lap bar, trying to not go down the hill.  Just ride it down and try to enjoy it.  Quit fighting it.”

So we got right back in line at that same ride, and we rode it again, and this time I tried to not fight it and ride it down… and it worked!  I had a good time!

With that little victory in our pocket, we moved on to another roller coaster, the Zambizi Zinger.  This was a neat little coaster, in which the train was a series of two-seat cars in which the riders were positioned one in front of the other.  The train looped up a circular track to the top elevation then began its twists and hills through the woods.  Doug and I boarded the ride with me in front, him behind me.  Once we were going and winding through the trees and high speeds, I noticed how incredibly smooth the ride was.  I enjoyed it, and we rode it a couple of times.

After those rides on the Zambizi Zinger, Doug said, “Ok, you’ve enjoyed those two.  Now let’s hit the Orient Express.”

Terrified, I agreed.  We made our way across the park and got in line, picking a loading lane where we would be seated safely in the middle of the train.  With heart pounding, I took my seat and pulled the harness down over my head and locked it in place.  The train slowly pulled out of the station, and there was no turning back.

We were climbing up the highest hill that I had ever ridden.  We were going to be over 115 feet in the air and it seemed so incredibly high. Once at the top, we quickly rounded a curve and began our plummet down. I couldn’t believe how it felt to fly down that hill, then suddenly loop upside down at high speed, not just once, but four times! By the time I got off the ride, I was laughing, yelling, whooping and hollering, as I felt I had tackled not only my fear of roller coasters, but had just experienced one of the wildest coasters in existence at that time.

That day we rode the small coaster several more times, the Zambizi Zinger about 10 more times, and the Orient Express 6 or 8 more times.  That night as I tried to sleep in my sleeping bag on the hard floor of my great aunt’s apartment in Kansas City, my equilibrium was all screwed up and I felt like I was still riding dips and turns on the coasters.

Over the last 33 years since that day, there have been many roller coaster rides, all of them thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly, none of the three coasters Doug and I rode that day at Worlds of Fun still exist, but have been replaced by bigger and wilder coasters. But in the back of my mind I’ve never forgotten that fateful day in 1971, where at the tender age of 6, I got scared on my first roller coaster ride.  I’ve always thought about that ride, and thought it would be interesting to go back to Six Flags and see if that old coaster was by some chance still there. Yesterday, 42 years after that first ride, I finally had the opportunity.

I went up to Six Flags to spend the day with my sons Kevin and Corey, and Kevin’s girlfriend Cecily.  It was a miserably hot day, but we were excited to get to see what the place looked like these days, and to ride the rides.  Plus I was anxious to go tripping down memory lane with some of the rides I recalled from all those years ago.

Naturally the park has changed a lot in 42 years.  Many more roller coasters and other rides exist now, and many of the old rides I recalled were long gone.  One boat ride, formerly known as Injun Joe’s Cave, is now a Scooby Doo ride, but the old boats they used in 1971 are still in use, with a few modifications.

I looked at the park map when we got there, and noticed that they had a roller coaster with the same name as the one I recalled, the River King Mine Train, and it was in the general area that I recalled. After riding several rides, we made our way over to the old coaster.  I looked at the information sign outside the entrance to the ride, and sure enough, it was the same old original ride, with one exception.  In 1971, it had two separate tracks, and riders could pick which one they wanted to ride.  Eventually one of the tracks was dismantled and sold off to Dollywood, so only one track remained, but it was still one of the originals.  I couldn’t wait to climb on and ride the old coaster that scared me so badly 42 years ago.

We took our places in line to ride in the middle of the train, which seemed like a smart choice, and Corey rode with me while Kevin and Cecily rode in the seat behind us. Climbing into the cars, I noticed that when the lap bar was pulled down, it sure was a tight fit. Since I’m considerably more stout than Corey, the bar was not down so tight on him, and I wondered if the same thing happened to me, since at 6 years old I would not have been as sturdy as Dad was, so the bar was probably pretty loose and I had lots of room to flop around.

My heart was thumping as the train pulled out of the station, as I was anxious to experience the ride again.  We took a quick dip and a fast turn around a corner immediately upon leaving the station, and it was most likely at that point that I discovered this ride was more than I had bargained for when I was 6. I told Corey, “I bet this point is where I told Dad I wanted off the ride.”

Riding through the rest of the ride, I chuckled and laughed as we twisted through the trees and bounced up and down. The dips were no worse than good ole Fire in the Hole, which over the years has become a personal favorite. The twists were tight, tighter than you would expect for an old steel coaster.  And that last dip now takes place in total darkness as if you are down in a mine. I remembered that last dip to be the place where I screamed the loudest when I was 6.

Pulling back into the station and laughing at how fun that old coaster was, I felt a special contentment deep down inside, knowing that I got to come full circle in my lifetime experiences of riding roller coasters. After 42 years, I got to experience once again a ride that had terrified me at a tender, vulnerable age.  And even better, I got to experience it with three of my favorite people on the planet. They knew the story, and they were happy to see the old man get to experience such a thing as well.

Walking away from the ride, I couldn’t help but think about that 6-year-old version of me, and I wanted so badly to be able to grab that little guy and hold onto him and tell him it’s ok to be scared, but to give the ride another shot, and that I would ride it with him this time…

Copyright 2013, by Tim Ritter