kiddieland

Normally in life, childhood kind of melts away in stages, like ice cream on a summer afternoon. Little by little, playgrounds and birthday parties lead to homework and summer jobs; which gradually give way to lawncare and daycare and taxes and business travel until one day, we look up and wonder where the time could have possibly gone. But once in awhile, something happens that sends an entire era crashing down definitively. For me, one of those somethings was the recent demolition of Kiddieland.

To all the pint-sized people who grew up in my neck of the woods, Kiddieland was our personal version of Club Med: a crayon-colored, candy-scented nirvana set to merry-go-round music, populated by acres of carnival rides built expressly for kids. We could hardly believe it – spinning teacups and Ferris wheels, bumper cars and rock-o-planes as far as the eye could see, all with specially scaled-down seats that couldn’t even fit the average parental rear end. There was a midway made up of swaggering clowns and men on stilts waving licorice and lollipops and pink cotton candy; and up and down its length lolled fat, smiling stuffed animals alongside friendly barkers who shouted that for only 25 cents and the right amount of skill, you could win a real live goldfish in a bowl. Yet as if all this weren’t enough, there were also the buddy rides, which permitted a parent to ride along with you. My favorite of these was the centerpiece of the park itself: an imposing white wooden roller coaster named The Little Dipper. The Dipper – as it was known for short – let us four-to-nine-year-olds scream our little kid heads off, while the protective arm of mom or dad stayed securely draped across our shoulders from the first drop to the final dizzying helix.

I can still remember sitting buckled into the backseat of our family sedan, red canvas Keds stuck straight out in front of me, craning my neck to see those flying circus flags begin to peak over the horizon. It’s funny how we adults require mantras that remind us repeatedly to live in the moment. I’m not sure when this becomes necessary. Because back in the day, as soon as I spied those flags, my entire existence was overtaken by the same giddy thought looping over and over and over: We’re going to Kiddieland!

Some time after his death, I found an old photo of me and my father as we crested the very top of the Dipper’s first hill. There I was in my old brown striped jacket, front teeth missing and mouth open wide in a silent shriek of elated anticipation. And there was my dad with his arm tight around me, sitting tall in his familiar white Hanes tee shirt, trying not to grin and failing miserably. The photo was weathered and yellowed, dusty and creased. The hill was a great deal smaller than it had ever seemed at the time. But my memory of simple trust and joy in that captured moment, as we sat poised together at the very top of the world, remains as bright and substantial as yesterday.

I couldn’t attend the demolition. After all, I’m a grown-up now with a job to hold down, a family to care for, bills to pay. But deep down, I know there’s more to it than that. Because in truth, I just couldn’t muster the courage to watch someone take my dear old friend off life support. And because that little girl, in the years since those flags proudly flew, has grown so troublingly subdued.

I’m afraid, you see, that my old friend might not have recognized me. And I’d rather we remember each other just the way we used to be.