It was called The Dahlonega Mine Train, and at five, my first
roller coaster ride was with my dad. I was barely old enough to get on. I
recall it being debatable as the worker stood me up to the sign that said, “You
must be this tall to ride this ride.”
I knew I could not tiptoe, but I stood as straight as I could,
trying to make my spine stretch like a Slinky. Daddy was wearing his khaki
pants and a matching shirt, his dark glasses and a hat. I cannot really
remember standing in the line, but I remember getting in the car that would
jerk and rattle us around the track. I was terrified. The worker pushed the bar
down to our laps and I held on for dear life. The ride started with a jolt and
then it was up a small incline, “Click-click-click-click…” and then the
clicking stopped. Almost silently, the train felt as if it were in freefall, but in
those days, the fall was more gradual. Next, it was into a curve. As I recall,
the first curve put me all the way against my dad, but the next turn was an
extreme turn that would cause him to slide into me. I was pinned, if only for a
moment, by the weight of my grown papa. And then, in the next jerk to the
right, I was back in his space again. It was a painful ride. My dad swore he’d
never get on another roller coaster in his life; that was a promise he would
keep.
As a little boy, I could not have known anything about the
life that was in store for me. Not that my experiences were all that uncommon,
but I was barely tall enough to experience the clicking of that first incline,
when I would go and sit beside Uncle Roy’s bedside. We would whisper to each
other because Uncle Roy could not speak above a whisper in his final days. He was
my first buddy in life. I got off the bus on Tuesday afternoon, February 16,
1971, and I went to see him as usual. I sat my books down on the old
glider and noticed a lot of people around, but had no idea why. Going into the
living room of my grandmother’s old house, I said, “I’m going to see Roy.”
All of the womenfolk burst out in tears all at once, but
nobody knew what to say to me. They didn’t have to tell me. I was only seven,
but I knew this was freefall number one.
Later that same year, I found myself in the first hard turn.
Myra and Bill had a secret. They’d been snooping around in Mom’s room and found
some diapers and other baby-related things. I can still see them, taking turns
cupping their sneaky little hands to each other’s ears. Mom was well into her
third trimester when she finally told me that I was going to have a brother or
a sister pretty soon. In 1971, I lost a wonderful uncle and gained a great
brother, but at the time, both events seemed like tragedies to me. I wasn’t the
baby of the family anymore.
In May of 1973, Grandma Coker slipped away and I stood by
her casket with my Dad. I saw a tear slowly falling down his cheek. It was the
only tear he would ever shed in my presence. It was when I realized that my Dad
was not quite invincible. We were in another hard curve and this time, Daddy
was the one sliding.
It seems like life really sped up from then on. Some moments
have been terrifying while others are filled with relief and even laughter. That’s
life. What a ride. The climbs seem to take forever and the falls seem to happen
way too fast. It can be a painful ride, but thrilling at the same time.
Yesterday, I found myself standing in the shade of the pines
that surround The Dahlonega Mine Train. I propped on the wooden fence that kept
me out, but I looked in and I thought about the ride I got on fifty years ago. It’s
all planned out better than it seems to be. As the “philosopher” Joe Walsh
said, “As you live your life, it appears to be anarchy and chaos, and random
events, non-related events, smashing into each other and causing this situation
or that situation, and then, this happens, and it’s overwhelming, and it just
looks like what in the world is going on ? And later, when you look back at it,
it looks like a finely crafted novel. But at the time, it don’t.”
