Sotto Voce aside re: Legitimate Job: apparently, when I was 14 and took shifts at a certain Ice Cream Parlor, it was illegal. Shhhh...

So, there I was...a new driver's license in my pocket and an ugly blue polyester uniform...making change to kids so that they could run the remote controlled cars, tanks and boats....wading into the algae-fied muck to change batteries, or stepping out into the blazing sun to fix wheels and tank treads...(I would later in the summer have a more genteel job in guest services.)

It was AstroWorld...the theme park in the shadow of the 8th Wonder of the World...currently the largest shelter in America...the Astrodome....

And now...the park will be demolished and sold to a developer, with only the water park surviving....it is truly the end of an era.

Memories:
--the kid who, while I was in the waders fixing a boat that was dead in the water and blocking paying customer's boats, raced his boat across the 15 yards of lagoon, ramming into my...um...upper hip, throwing me off balance, causing me to slip, filling the waders, which then caused me to slip again...I think it was a slapstick lover's dream....I just remember the smell of that water on my clothes and in my hair.

--discovering that the smaller employee lunchroom over by the Jungle Ride had much better food...and all the cute tour guides in their short shorts....not that I REMOTELY could acknowledge what my feelings were then...

--being accused of theft by an overzealous security guard when I made the mistake of paying for 3 chances and winning the game of the softball peach basket toss on the Midway on the ONE day I used my employee pass to visit the park and then tried to leave the park through the employee entrance...I quit shortly thereafter...I think it had to do with crying in front of the park assistant manager, who lived around the corner from us and sold my parents a cheap knife set.

--being called to come into work during a tropical depression, even though the park was closed, because our lagoon was going to overflow and break the moorings of our fancy plastic lagoon guard (which looked like moutains, a village and an oil refinery). We had to wade out and unhook the fancy platic lagoon guard (what else would you call it?) and then secure the parts of the other areas that could (and did) flood. They did pay us double time...but it was SO wet.

Farewell Astroworld...I'll eat some cotton candy and throw up in your memory.