The world's scariest carnival ride

 ...at least it was always to me and my family.

Our summers were spent at Sylvan Beach, New York, also Verona Beach, next door, but I'm not going to get into that right now.

Our summer days turned to weeks without care. Every day brought new adventures and many of those adventures, if we were lucky, led us to a to the Sylvan Beach midway. The rides, games, and arcade games were aging, but the place was magic to us. In my youngest days I remember the kiddie rides area where I wondered why anyone would want more than these rides made just for me, especially that torpedo ride that really flew, four foot off the ground and connected to a big central arm, working pistols, that made shooting noises, and you could ride backwards or forwards with your best friend, or if need be sister.

The park was unique in that each area had a different owner. Our family had the good fortune of my father having a sister, my Aunt Phyllis, whose husband, Uncle Bernie, owned a good portion of the back part of the midway. Many of the rides my uncle had were quite wicked. My father always complained about getting hurt on the roller coaster because it was pretty mean. By the time I could remember that coaster had been taken down. Another distant memory was that of the Whip, which was also dismantled by the time I was old enough to ride because I think it gave people whiplash. The bumper cars really meant business with tiny half-filled inner tubes providing the cars only protection upon impact. I swear the sounds and feel was metal on metal when those cars collided. As a young kid I dreaded my aunt working the ticket booths. This meant that she wouldn't allow us to pay for tickets for the rides. She also didn't give us tickets either (that would have been a waste). She told us to just tell the ride operator that she was our aunt and we would ride for free. Frankly we'd rather have paid instead of having to talk to strangers, but these are some of the challenges you have to overcome in an early life. As a teenager I didn't even ask my aunt any longer, and just went up to the ride operators confidently telling them who we were, if they dared not recognize me, and ascended the ride. I felt like royalty.

But, this isn't the story of my uncle's near torturous ride. It isn't the story about the misnamed Laffland either which was in eyeshot of the kiddie park next to Skeeball and Fascination. Laffland was adorned with ghosts, witches, and goblins and looked more like screams than laughs. Somehow my parents got me on that ride at a young age and, though meant to be scary, I knew even at that age that it was lame having nothing more than a few still rubber dummies with what looked like masks on, some hanging strings meant to be webs I guess, and a light with a train whistle that looked like it was approaching, but the ride was actually moving toward it. The ride makers certainly put more work on the outside of the ride than the ride itself.

This story leads to the center of the park, just past the old huge carousel house where in addition to horses you could ride anything from a rooster, to a tiger, and even a pig. As you exited the carousel the first thing you would hear was the sound of a vendor over a loud speaker yelling over over and over again Car-r-r-r-mel Co-o-o-rn. Soon you would hear it, the loud whirring and grinding of gears. Then you would see it towering over everything else in the midway, rising to the height of a house, just peaking over most buildings to taunt and torment even the most daring of riders, with a dangerous name that haunted everyone I ever talked to about it. Right next to the scrambler stood the awesome and powerful dive bomber, which looked like a contraption out of our worst nightmares. I swear that the ride was always going and nobody ever dared ride it. Up and around it would go, twisting its two end capsules on each rotation with that awful whir on each turn. The capsules that would hold riders if there ever were any that is were too dark inside to make out any form, human or otherwise. I also mysteriously never remember any ride operator as it just kept going around and around whirring and whirring. We'd barely look at the thing and I got old enough just to ignore it knowing that nobody in their right mind would ever get on the thing, but it was always there and I knew it, already ancient and growing in danger with every whirring pass.

I was well into my teens when I found myself at a crossroads. I was well beyond the years of being embarrassed to get on my uncle's rides for free. The fear of that dive bomber faded as I had realized that it wasn't one of my uncle's rides. I couldn't go on for free. There were plenty of rides I could go on for free, so logic dictates that I never had to be the slightest bit tempted to go on. Proof solved. I was at the midway that day with my family and my Uncle Dick and Aunt Margaret's family. Their oldest Danny and I, for some reason, never got along. Danny never seemed to like me. It might be because he was a few years older. It could have been that he was jealous of my much closer relationship with my cousin Sharon, his sister (lots of stories there for another time). It might be that he just enjoyed to torment me. I still remember the time he told my cousin Pam that the bathroom was free when he knew darn well that I was on the toilet, a memory that will forever be branded into my brain. For some reason Danny seemed a bit more friendly that day. Maybe he was growing out of his antagonizing ways. Like being in a nightmare where you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a frightening situation, somehow, on that day, we found ourselves with tickets in hand, in line for the dive bomber.

Maybe I was in a daze as this was the first memory of my cousin Danny ever being nice to me. He was just as scared being this his first time on the dive bomber, too, which may account for some of this new found niceness. As we approached the machine I noticed that the capsule was a bit of a cage where little could escape. We intentionally got on the front capsule realizing that mid-ride we would become the back capsule as the ride reversed (OH, DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT?). There was a spartan thinly padded seat with a thick brown belt that crossed both of us and barely kept us in. No separate seat belts here, no secure restraints.

Up and up we went. Our first ascent quite slowly lead to its crescendo promise of a thrilling ride to follow. As we descended we bounced around in our cage, our screams quite audible as the ride picked up speed. These however were not screams of terror, but screams of pure joy with a dose of laughter. This was one of those times where time both seemed to go by in a blink of an eye, but somehow also goes on forever. Whether it had been a few moments or a few minutes the ride came to an end, and for the first time ever my cousin Danny and I had shared a lifelong and cherished memory that would change our relationship, for the better, from that day forward. Our second lifelong memory was when we got in a line a few minutes later to ride again, this time starting in the back.