When Bumps are Amusing

Tonight Ellen and her friends were having fun at St. Gertrude's Festival in Madeira.  A big fundraiser for the Catholic Church, it was the first year in a while that the weather cooperated.  I roamed the booths but had the most fun people watching and seeing the thrill on the young kids faces on the Sizzler.

Amusement Parks are forever etched into a child's memory.  I still remember the name of the park outside of Salt Lake City - Lagoon (and it's still there).  A single day pass is $46 today.  Kings Island (the Cincinnati Amusement Park) has online day passes for $38 (normally $55). Each ride at the St. Gertrude's festival rides was two, three or four tickets ($20 for a batch of 22 tickets).  Amusement Park rides are expensive - but fun memories.

The most memorable Amusement Park I visited was in Warsaw Poland.  Our Church youth group was treated to many of the attractions in Warsaw - Planetarium, Museums, and the Amusement Park.  Of course many of us had been veteran Cedar Point and Geauga Lake (Northern Ohio Amusement Parks) attendees so the rides in Warsaw seemed third rate (in addition to being in the third world). 

When we approached the bumping cars we all began to smile.  The Polish drivers were methodically and carefully driving their cars in a perfect circle around the bumping arena.  Didn't they know what bumping cars were for, we asked each other?  Not wanting to offend the Polish drivers, we all got in line together and tried to orchestrate just the Americans in the arena so that our bumping would not offend the Polish.   Our goal was to demonstrate the American way of "intense bumping"! Unfortunately, we couldn't quite coordinate a complete arena of just the Americans.  Regardless we decided to start just bumping each other while trying to avoid the Polish drivers.  Alas that was impossible and before long ever driver, Polish and American alike, was colliding with each other - laughing and enjoying the bumps.

I wonder to this day if they are still colliding in Warsaw - the American way.