Shoup Airlines

15 Seconds

As previously mentioned, I recently moved back to Southern California, specifically Buena Park. Co-located in this fine town is a little amusement park that has more history and culture but less profile than it’s juggernaut of a neighbor. Did you know Mr. Knott and his famous boysenberry have been around longer than the Tragic Kingdom? But enough of the mindless trivia, you can do the research on your own.

Sometime during the late nineties Knott’s Berry Farm was purchased by the Cedar Fair people. These are the guys that hold several of the world records in roller coasters. We’re talking rides that make you expel bodily fluids you’ve never seen out orifices you didn’t know you had. Fun stuff! Sadly, Knott’s doesn’t possess any of the record holding stomach wrenchers. Nevertheless, they have some pretty decent rides and even a few classics that warm the cockles of my inner child’s heart.

If I walk out to my front yard I can see the majority of these metal monsters and, at first, thought all was good…until bedtime arrived. As I beat the faux-feather pillow into submission and began to grab my forty winks, a horrific shrill that would put any death throe to shame, echoed through my room. Suddenly wide awake, I desperately sought to find the owner of this howl or did I try to hide from it? That’s not important. What the hell was that!? My God, there it is again! Wait, was that a mechanical swoosh buried in the shriek? AGAIN, there it is again, and yes that was a mechanical swoosh with a definite rapid “clickety-clack” also. Is this the apocalypse? NO, it’s the stupid roller coasters cranking and banking at Knott’s!!

I quickly realize that something I tune out or is drowned out during the day is now haunting the sublimely serene evenings roughly once every 15 seconds. I begin to truly admire and hate the engineers that design these rides at this point. They have created machines that cause people to scream either in sheer fright or delight that, when amassed into one voice, sound absolutely cadaverous. At least when one is in that state between the conscious and subconscious realms of sleep. I think I may have discovered a new form of torture! What must the people, nay, the children be like that have lived in the shadow of this nightmare for years?! Tim Burton suddenly comes to mind. Then again, after a few nights I’ve already adjusted and don’t even notice the banshee wail any longer. Now, if only I could figure out how to do the same thing with that little voice in my head…