Fond Family Memories

When you look at the bare bones of an amusement park, you will find its special purpose. To make money? Well, yeah, but I'm talking about entertaining families. (This obviously does not apply for XXX amusement parks, assuming there are such things.) Family entertainment is a tradition. If a family has a good time at an amusement park one year, they are likely to come back the next year, and the year after that and the year after that. You get the point. Family outings to an amusement park provide an interesting way to have fun, build family bonds, and to observe change in height and interests. This summer, I have seen many families visit our amusement park and many of these families have been coming here for quite awhile, decades even. They always seem to enjoy it.

And when I say it, I do not mean the actual present experience they are having in the present. I mean, of course, the shining glorious memory of times from childhood (for parents) and parenthood (for grandparents). Generally they have few bad memories from this time, but for some reason the memories of trips to the amusement park are filled with the most fun, wonder, and excitement. Now, most people will accept the fact that changes come with ti

me. They are inevitable and will happen, especially when the amusement park they knew has been bought a corporate firm. Others have an almost insane ability to give up the grand memories of summer fun and adventure that they had experienced in years past. What these "others" need to realize is that the past is the past for a reason. It's not going to happen again. Its's not going to go back to the way it was even if they complain about everything that they deem wrong with the park.

As if that isn't bad enough, these families often who have children who may or may not be experiencing that park for the first time. They sometimes tell their children about they're "glory days" of high adventure and fun times at the amusement park, with verbs all in the past tense and the adjectives colorful and bright. Now, the children may have had fun prior to these recollections by parents or grandparents, and they may still have fun after. But due to budget cuts, the amusement park has had come cutbacks. On the weekdays only a few people are working the kiddyland rides and some of the bigger rides are getting fixed for the weekend. This makes children grumpy enough, and when coupled with darkened dreams of older generations, it can send them into a spiraling hole of grumpy disappointment. This causes everything else to go to hell. Need proof? Here's an illustration of the effects of this on the customer service employees.

This is a poorly drawn MS paint drawing, but I feel it gets the point across. What it doesn't show is that the children are bored and unhappy while waiting for their parents to complain. They would most likely get over their grumpy-ness and disappointment as they went on more rides that were open or ate ice cream as they watched the creepy carp swarm as they saw them approach.

Moral of the story? The past is in the past, childhood memories will always be shining glimmers on pedestals too high to reach ever again, and children do not stay disappointed for long.

Also- ending note. Let me know the drawing is entirely horrible, k?