It seems wrong to close out the summer of 2015, which I've spent on Fridays flashing back to the summer of 1995 (because, well ... that's my shtick and I'm shticking to it [I'll pause while you groan]), without at least once referencing this trip, noted in my archives to have taken place in July of that year.
The list is what I kept back then of each time I crossed Pennsylvania state lines (proving that my love for travel has been a part of my personality for decades, and also hinting at the fact that I may have grown up in a small town of modest means). So what was at exit 7A in the fine state of New Jersey? Something I had actually visited *half* of once before on a school field trip when I was much younger ...
This was Six Flags Great America (it included the famed drive through safari section ... which was all we did during that aforementioned field trip), and for someone raised on Hersheypark and Knoebel's, it was the place to go amusement parking that was slightly more exotic. My favorite memory of the trip is self-deprecating, and also speaks to personality traits of mine that have been present as undercurrents for many years.
Turns out that I *insisted* on wearing a long sleeve henley style green-shirt of long-john heft that day, despite it being the middle of July in a hot summer, because I was *certain* that we would be in the park getting ocean breezes and that it would be pretty darn cool on the rides. My cohort of friends all tried to talk me out of it, but I. Knew. Best. Fast forward to the middle of the afternoon, and picture a sun beating down directly for hours, and then picture a sweaty sweaty Troy who determined the only way to avoid a heat stroke was to ditch said shirt for the only replacement available ... a tank top in the park gift shop that included the park's advertising slogan of that era. When I peeled off the shirt I was wearing, my skin had turned the same color green from the dye released by my buckets and buckets of sweat.
I found a way to suffer that consequence. Much more difficult a burden to bear? Having to go the rest of the day with my friends engaging in a call and response routine where one would shout half of the slogan I was now sporting ... WANT MORE ... and someone would reply with the answer ... NEED MORE!
Despite the ribbing ... it's actually one of my fondest recollections of the gang of us out and about (especially that year, which started with our group trip to DC, a story previously told on Fridays past). Admittedly, that just might be because, to the best of my knowledge, no pictures of that day exist ... only the memories in our heads.
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