It is 6:19 AM on Sunday February 27th, 2022. I woke up at 4:00 AM and actually got out of bed this time. I’m taking my boys to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk again today and am pretty excited about it. We went two weeks ago and I learned my youngest loves the rides! Not just the kiddie rides, but will do whatever he is tall enough to get on. This encouraged my oldest, who has never enjoyed the larger rides to get on as well. We all had a great time and they are excited to go again.
Furthermore, it will be just us guys. The wife does not enjoy the rides except for the roller coaster. Her choice of activity today is not the park but the nursery to buy plants! Boooo. We usually do everything together as a family but today we will go our separate ways. I do not believe she is willing to go to the nursery by herself but I will ask. We’ve been working on our garden a lot recently thus her increased interest in plants at the moment.
I really love the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for a couple of reasons. The first is that its size makes it more intimate and approachable unlike Six Flags where the size, wait times and very scary rides make it overwhelming for young kids. The second reason is the history: the Beach Boardwalk has been around since 1907 and I think of all the generations that have passed through its gates. For well over 100 years the venue has been a refuge of fun and laughter while the world around them oscillated between good and terrible times.
For me, the Beach Boardwalk gives me strong ’80s vibes as the popular movie “The Lost Boys” was filmed there. “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not die.”
I was just a kid during the ’80s but I remember the fun and excitement of those times. Each decade brings with it its own character and energy; zeitgeist is the best word I can think of although imperfect. We were always under threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union but as a kid that amounted to no more than a dark speck of dust in our collective minds. My world was focused on Saturday morning cartoons, the accompanying “action figures” (they’re not dolls!), Atari video games and playing outside with my friends. And as this blog is my recorded life I may be the only person in the world who can go back in time in his blog to the ’80s. (I’ve always kept a journal and incorporated those journals into my blog)
As you can see I was not concerned with the Soviet Union but rather the accessories of my GI Joe “action figures” which were designed in part to instill patriotism and the desire to actually become a solider to fight the Soviet Union. Ever wonder why Cobra’s color is red?
The ’80s were such a fun time but perhaps it is because I experienced them as a child. Or perhaps in watching ’80s movies my mind attributes more fun to the ’80s then they actually were? I was into The Karate Kid, E.T. Star Wars, the real classics. My mom would always watch Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and M.A.S.H. In writing those sentences I realize that I look to ’80s movies for nostalgia and those T.V. shows provided a bit of nostalgia for my Mom! As we age and our lives change we often look back with fondness on the past, making them out to be better than they actually were don’t we.
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is from an era gone by continually manifesting itself in the present. It is timeless. With every clickity-clack of the roller coaster, in every scream of terror and laugh of joy I hear the echos and feel the energy of the past. I strive to see the faded shadows of those young kids from decades ago on their first dates, so full of optimism for the future enjoying a wonderful moment in their lives all thanks to the Beach Boardwalk. Walking out the gates the rides and games would have given way to a career, families, and like the roller coaster big highs as well as deep lows in their lives. I think about all of the generations who passed through and wonder if any of their descendants are walking past me in the year 2022. Where did they all go and what became of them? Did Johnny end up marrying the girl with whom he shared a cotton candy in 1962? Did he end up in Vietnam? Did they get divorced or perhaps they remain happily married and now live down the street from me in Pacifica?
As I age I realize life is like an amusement park. We spend a lot of time walking around and looking about wondering where the action is and following the crowd. Another good chuck of time is monotonous, we’re waiting for something to happen. We make decisions on what to experience and sometimes those decisions are disappointing such as choosing a ride that has a long wait time and breaks down. In all experiences we are surrounded by people. These people suddenly appear, share the experience with us and then are gone with only a few being people we’ll ever see again. At 44 years old my childhood friends with whom I went to the amusement park are mostly no longer part of my life, just like those who I sit next to momentarily on a ride. The chances I’ll share another experience with them are very small. As I continue to go to the amusement park the crowd gets younger and younger. I’m no longer a young boy hoping to win a prize or meet a girl. Instead I’m the one paying for my own kids to try and win prizes and I see any women under 35 as kids themselves while being unable to comprehend how many of them have kids of their own. The chance to meet a girl was the most exciting aspect when I was a boy; that has been completely replaced with the desire to ride the Fireball as many times as possible as well as eat a salted pretzel with cheese for dipping. The amount of cheese in those cups is never enough.
Perhaps I feel kinship with those of the past. They experienced the same joy I experience at the park and are now gone. I’m halfway to being gone myself and perhaps as I walk the same promenade they whisper in my ear to enjoy the moment, soak it all in as fully as possible. Time is fleeting so be sure to savor every bite of that pizza, laugh as loudly as I want on the ride, let the joy chase out all of my worries and cares as they surely wait for me outside of the gates.
Although a part of me is trying to resurrect the joy of my youth in a visit to the park only a few shiny fragments can be found. Instead, a new type of joy is in abundance and that is providing a wonderful day for my own boys. It is OK to glance at the past so long as the majority of our focus is on the present. Soon enough, the joy we experience today will be something we look back on with fondness. Soon enough I’ll be drinking beer with my college-aged boys and reminiscing about all the fun we had going to the park when my youngest was barely tall enough to ride. There will be a strong desire to relive those days and so I better experience it as fully as I can today.
Update 3.3.2022
It is 4:56 AM on Thursday February 3rd, 2022. I’ve been meaning to write about our day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk but either haven’t had the time or the motivation. Today, I woke up early as usual but this time decided to get out of bed and write my updates while the world is still asleep.
We arrived at the Boardwalk around 10:45 AM which meant plenty of time for the arcade and food before the rides opened at noon. In the arcade the boys had fun playing air hockey, Tomb Raider. I had downloaded Tomb Raider for my son a few months ago hoping to provide something other than Fortnite and follow up on his enjoyment of Portal. At his age he is too old for the kiddie games such as Roblox but not old enough for the adult games that all too often involve horrible violence. I chose Tomb Raider because I enjoyed playing the first edition back in 1998 or so; what I didn’t know is that the newer versions have plenty of violence and bad words. My mistake. I mention all of this because it was need to be able to play the same game on a large arcade screen.
After the arcade we got the usual turkey leg and I almost made a new friend! A guy sitting at the next table with his family asked how I liked the turkey leg to which I responded that it was absolutely delicious being very juicy and a bit salty. I then blurted out “Lemme see that shirt!” to which he seemed momentarily surprised and then let out a delighted laugh when I showed him my own. He was wearing a Cobra Kai t-shirt and so was I. His family thought it was so awesome that they asked for a picture of us together. I should have asked for a picture of my own but I didn’t think of it at the time.
As I read back what I wrote about the Boardwalk that Sunday morning and then consider the actual experience, I realize my mental image of an event is much different than the actual event itself. When writing I tap into all of the unseen, a vast ocean of energy which can only be accessed by quiet, deep contemplation often achieved through writing. In that state, I can feel the history, can see the shadows and hear the laughter of the generations gone by enjoying their time at the park. But when that ‘meditation’ ends so does the powerful connection. It is like waking up from an infinite and wonderful dream world to reality and that reality may or may not be so great.
Experiencing the park after my ‘meditation’ can be a bit of a letdown. In my mind I had pictured brightly lit, warm summer nights in high school, with friends or perhaps on a first date really soaking in all that youthful joy. In reality I see overpriced food, long lines, a good amount of patrons that look like they were just released from prison, and a small but persistent concern about catching COVID. The joy that does appear however is when I see the smiles and hear the laughter of my boys. I know the memories they are creating are much more powerful than mine and I think they will look back with fondness on their childhood trips to the park with Dad.
As for me, there were two things that did cause me great concern and distracted quite a lot from my enjoyment of the park. In my first entry above I briefly mentioned the threat of nuclear annihilation we had back in the ’80s. Well, that very same dark specter suddenly reappeared after a 32 year absence on our Sunday at the park. While in line I was reading the news and saw Putin had threatened nuclear war should anyone interfere in his war in Ukraine. I read article after article which seemed to lead directly to World War 3: Germany had suddenly and vastly increased military spending, different countries started applying for EU and NATO membership, devastating sanctions were being applied to Russia and so on. I had a fear that San Francisco would be a top destination for a nuclear strike and was mad at my wife for not joining us that day in a much more remote and thus safer, Santa Cruz.
I was standing in line with my boys for a ride while wondering if we were all soon to die or at least if the world was soon to be horribly altered.
The only indication that anyone at the park was smart enough to know what was happening were two ladies in front of me when one said “Well, there is nothing we can do about it, so I’m not going to think about it.” As for everyone else, it was like living in a simulation where I’m the only player and everyone else is a mindless NPC. Here was the threat of nuclear war but everyone seemed be enjoying themselves as usual. It was quite surreal.
My second concern had to do with something I mentioned above: a good amount of patrons really did look like they were just released from jail. I don’t mean a few scruffy looking guys with a few inconspicuous tattoos, I’m talking about younger guys with full on face tattoos looking like they may be the current leaders of South American gangs. My anxiety really spiked when we rode the swing ride and one of them sat in a swing next to my son. We always choose the outside swings as they go the highest and so are behind each other in a line. Well, that kid chose the inside one next to my son and all I could think about was that he may have a gun in that hoodie pouch that could accidentally go off due to the movement of the ride.
He couldn’t have been more than 17 yet was fully covered in tattoos. He did appear to be South American and was accompanied by three girls which seemed to be family. The fact he was with those girls gave me comfort but I thought it odd they seemed very normal while he was a poster boy from Mara Salvatrucha. I wanted to move my son but not make a scene either. That was one tense ride for me.
I think comparing the amusement park going crowd from the ’60s and today one can get a sense of the anxiety and fears on full display from Republicans and especially Trump when he called migrants rapists and murders. Just to be clear I detest Trump and what the Republican party has become. However, think of a ’60s crowd, it would be mostly white with a few African Americans, a very big percentage would be Christian and for the most part everyone would be quite similar. Then look at the crowd today and you’ll see much more color, a LOT more tattoos and realize this is the same motley crew you see at the DMV. It is exactly this which is driving otherwise sane people to elect idiots such as Trump, Greene, and other neo-Republican bastards.
As for me personally, I’ve traveled and lived in many parts in the world and love the diversity. Diversity isn’t the problem, it is economic inequality and how life keeps getting more difficult for the working class. This same problem experienced by the rich-poor divide extends to geopolitics where the powerful countries continue to exploit the poor countries. Life is tough and it makes me glad to see nearly everyone, face tattoos or not, smiling and having a good time at the park. I’d just rather keep a healthy social distance between some of those young kids and my family.
