Not Attractive

Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

There’s an amusement park in Pittsburgh called Kennywood. Apparently it has been around forever—or at least as long as the cultural memory of the people I meet. They return year after year to recall the events of their past. And when they find out I have never been to Kennywood, they are shocked.

“You’ve never been to Kennywood?!” they exclaim, as if I’m a space alien.

For a person born in the area, that would be truly unbelievable because, I guess, everyone goes to Kennywood at some point in their lives, either for the rides, or the Halloween event, or the French fries. (I’m just guessing on that; are Kennywood French fries a thing?) But for me, growing up in South Central Pennsylvania nowhere near Pittsburgh, it’s not a stretch of the imagination that I’ve never gone. Also, I’ve only been in the area since I turned 48, so it seems unlikely that I would have sought out an amusement park for entertainment.

When I was kid, though, there were frequent trips to Hersheypark. Our school even had a day at Hersheypark where the school would close down and we’d all go with our packed lunches, our bags of bread for the fish, and our desire for, yes, you guessed it, those amazing Hersheypark French fries.

I wasn’t a fan of roller coasters or a lot of rides back then but I did get on the merry-go-round and the ski lift (where once my aunt almost lost a shoe high above the walking path; she squinched up her toes and held on). My favorites were the Dry Gulch Railroad and the scary haunted house (the name of which I’ve forgotten). Perhaps I enjoyed the theatrical nature of both,* including the engineer shooting the would-be train robber, long before I would step onstage as an actor.

I’ve also been to Disneyland (parts of which seemed a bit old-fashioned) and Disneyworld. In Space Mountain, about halfway through, I conquered my fear of roller coasters. And both were fun, in their way, though I am not a Disney person.

And as for Kennywood, unless there is some amazing driving need for me to go, I may never venture there. I’ll have to rely on hearsay to find out about the goodness or badness of those fries.

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* One of the things that fascinated me about the haunted house—because the elements inside were not that scary—was the fact that the ride consisted of two stories or floors, and when you were outside behind the building, you could see the cars come out of one door onto a second floor balcony, and then disappear in another door back inside. But on the ride, you couldn’t tell you were ascending at any point. That was extremely well done, to have such a ride in a fairly limited space.