Let's all go ride (09/17/2008)

Every year I consider it.

But every year I figure memories can be more valuable than the harsh realities of today.

I'll find myself over by Wapakoneta, usually on the way home from vacation, and see a road sign pointing in the direction of Indian Lake.

Indian Lake.

When I was about 12 or 13, few words could be so evocative.

Indian Lake.

Think "Disneyland" and you'll know what I'm talking about.

At Indian Lake, in Logan County, Ohio, there was an amusement park. And not just any amusement park, a place that billed itself as the "Atlantic City of the Midwest."

That was before my time, however.

By the time I made my few pilgrimages to Indian Lake, it was a seedy, rundown place, with just enough thrills to make it live on in memory.

It was not the sort of place my parents would take me.

My father was an inveterate identifier of "tourist traps," which often translated into places that would be cool and fun for kids but that would leave him grumbling afterwards. Cave tours, roadside attractions showing "prehistoric creatures," or places advertising "goat's milk fudge" fell into the same category.

It took an inordinate amount of whining to get him to stop at such places, and there was no way he'd haul us to a place like Indian Lake.

That's what first led me to stray from the religion in which I had been raised.

I grew up a Presbyterian. It's hard not to when your grandfather has been minister of the local church.

But about the time adolescence was kicking in, I began to find the Presbyterian constraints a bit too, shall we say, Presbyterian.

For instance, our church youth group, which met on Sunday nights, had the boring but accurate name of "Youth Fellowship." I attended dutifully, though without a great deal of enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, across town, there was a competing organization known by the snazzy name of "MYF."

Marketing, I suppose, is everything. "MYF" stood for "Methodist Youth Fellowship," but it sure sounded snappier.

And it did not hurt a bit that the Methodist group had an abundance of cute girls. The Presbyterian girls were cute enough, but there was nothing that could be described as an abundance.

Plus, this snazzy, snappy "MYF" outfit took trips now and then. Outings. To places like Indian Lake.

It helped that my neighborhood was awash in Methodists. And it helped that the parents of my good friend Dan Cox often sponsored the "MYF" group.

So it was that I was able - setting aside theological arguments about whether a John Wesley oriented youth group had more fun than a John Calvin oriented youth group - to tag along on trips by the Methodist kids to Indian Lake.

For me, the attractions of the place - aside from its seediness and the fact that I was in the company of near-heathen Methodists - were three.

The first, obviously, was the roller coaster. This was a wooden structure that would probably cause cardiac arrest in any modern day insurance adjuster.

It went, over the years, by a number of names, including "Silver Streak."

Just to make things more interesting for thrill-seekers, you never knew when the roller coaster was going to be in operation.

One year when I visited with my Methodist friends, it was closed because it had been condemned as unsafe. The next year, it was safe again, though only those of us who loved a good coaster ride braved it.

The second was the best fun house I have ever been in. Most of it was ordinary - wobbly stairs, moving walkways, and bursts of air up your pant leg - but at the end you went down a wooden slide - as smooth as any bowling lane - with a steep slope down into a room that was simply an extension of the slide, all in slippery wood.

After the slide, you were supposed to leave the fun house. But there was no penalty if you were crazy enough to risk floor burns climbing back up to the top for another free slide down.

And finally, on my last visit to Indian Lake, I discovered the nickelodeon. It was the real thing, intact in 1961 or so, showing "bawdy" images from my grandparents' era.

Not long after that, things went downhill. And they went downhill quickly.

There was a series of motorcycle gang riots near the amusement park in the 1960s, and today it has, apparently, pretty much vanished.

That's okay. That's what happens.

But I figure as long as I don't go back to confirm the reality, the memory can live on.

Let's go ride the "Silver Streak."[[In-content Ad]]