The Demonic Snarling Metal Demon of the Boulevard of Death

 

One person’s joy may certainly be another’s horror, as we are all neuronally wired differently along with varying genetically infused doses of courage. The Roller Coaster at Fairyland was a good example of these differences.

            The misleading term FairyLand conjures up images of an idyllic amusement park in some pastoral setting, nestled in some backwater, away from the noise and commotion of city life, but this was not the case with FairyLand, situated on the teeming, noisy, pollution sputtering Queens Boulevard! In later years this major thoroughfare would receive the honorific, horrific moniker The Boulevard of Death. The park was situated on the current sight of The Queens Center Mall across from the former St. John’s Hospital. Little did this naïve young visitor realize what lay ahead. The small park was minuscule by today’s standards, containing a Ferris Wheel, fire truck ride, a small arcade and miniature golf course along with a few other nondescript rides including that metallic and wooden demon from hell, The Fairy Coaster! With its hairpin thirty degree turns, insanely precipitous ascents of fifteen feet and equally treacherous plunges at a thirty-five-degree angle, riders threw caution to the wind, plummeting to earth at twelve miles per hour, risking life and limb on this rolling, rollicking, treacherous dance with death, presumably for enjoyment! I envisioned FairyLand as a secret government testing ground, an obstacle course, or recruitment center researching the limits of human endurance, searching America for the Best of the Best, the boldest devil may care courageous thrill seekers, ready to risk life and limb for eventual notoriety and fame in the NASA Space Program, being spun around at gravitational forces many times what their bodies were designed to withstand. As unsuspecting boys and girls frolicked innocently through the park with the sweet smells of cotton candy, hot dogs, buttered popcorn and crackerjack’s creating an intoxicating eau de parfum, they were presumably being put through their paces and observed and documented as potential recruits for, or unceremoniously rejected for not having the right stuff to enter the space program, our international political boxcar race to the moon with our then rival The Soviet Union. It was the only explanation I could conceive of as to why anyone would resort to climbing onto one of these contraptions for presumed enjoyment. Along with The Rack, Thumb Screws and the Iron Maiden, these devices would have been more appropriately implemented in the Dark Ages. Even at this early age I surmised that a career as a test pilot, or an astronaut was not in my future and there would be no rollercoaster bonding with my future offspring on one of these contraptions. Chuck Yeager’s poster was not on my wall! The Mercury Seven including John Glenn of the U.S. Marines, Alan Shepard, Walter Schirra and Scott Carpenter of the U.S. Navy along with Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton of the U.S. Air Force would never have to worry about moving over to share the spotlight with me!                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                    Jim Nov 22’