Coasting along

Several years ago, when I was working with teen-agers at the church I grew up in, a 12-year-old girl turned to me in horror, tears welling in her eyes, when she realized I had let her get on the Mind Bender, North America’s first triple-loop roller coaster.

Moments earlier in the boarding area, LeeAnne couldn’t see the ride’s towering hills, not to mention the three times it sends riders upside-down, thanks to Six Flags opting to leave most of the trees surrounding the coaster in place.

Somehow she had gotten it in her head, I think from her brother, that it was timid in comparison to the Dahlonega Mine Train, which she had refused to ride.

We hadn't been able to coax her to get on the Great American Scream Machine. The same went for the Georgia Cyclone. But somehow we were getting her on the Mind Bender, at her own suggestion.

That’s why two of her friends had been about to explode in anticipation of the surprise LeeAnne would discover — that this ride was much, much worse — only after she was strapped in and it was too late.

Call it child abuse, but I intended to let it happen.

I spent too many years avoiding roller coasters because I was, well, chicken. I almost got on my first one at age 5, when my family was visiting friends in Pittsburgh, Pa. We were at White Swan Park, and I was in line for the Mad Mouse.

But then I saw my mom screaming and on the verge of tears while she rode it with my dad. Screaming “don’t let Steve ride this” probably wasn’t helpful, either.

Funnily enough, it was on another trip with the same friends at another now-defunct theme park six or seven years later when I finally talked myself into riding one.

We were at Opryland in Nashville, and I decided I would take my chances on the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (now at Six Flags Great Escape as the Canyon Blaster, according to a Web search).

Long story short, I ended up riding it 12 or 13 times.

That’s what I hoped for LeeAnne. So not until the coaster pulled out of the covered shelter did she turn and see how high we would be climbing — and, therefore, how far we would be falling.

I don’t think betrayal was anywhere in her eyes. Only sheer panic and a plea to somehow help her escape.

I smiled and promised, “LeeAnne, you can do this. I never would’ve allowed you to get on this one if I didn’t think you could. Just hold on tightly and don’t close your eyes. Actually watch what happens.”

I half-expected the bar to buckle under the pressure of her grip. She held on with the same preservation instinct that keeps people hanging on balcony ledges and cliff walls in B-grade movies while I, over the click-click-click of the chain that pulls the train to the crest of the initial hill, chattered with the tone and lack of brevity of a man talking a camping buddy through voluntarily sawing his leg off to free himself from a boulder.

Once the last click of the conveyer sounded and the cars of the train curved quietly to the right through the treetops, we approached the realization of LeeAnne’s greatest fear. She would one day reminisce about this moment and laugh with her kids, I said. She would absolutely love this.

Then we plummeted. The coaster roared through the upside-down loop at the bottom of the first dive when LeeAnne shouted, “This is incredible! I can’t believe I’ve been missing out all this time!”

And I couldn’t help but laugh with relief.

These days (read “in middle age”) I usually steer clear of theme parks because the huge lines and suffocating crowds are more than I can handle. I was there for LeeAnne to face a childhood fear only because I was a chaperone.

But I went to Six Flags on Saturday and Sunday not only for my niece’s cheerleading competition but also to accompany her and my nephew on their first big-league roller coaster rides. I wanted to spend time with them. And I wanted to make certain neither of them had the same timidity about rides that I once had.

So I couldn’t help but think of LeeAnne and her first words after she disembarked from the Mind Bender all those years ago when I was with Ryan and Kathryn on Sunday. That’s because my niece, after her first trip on the Georgia Cyclone, had the same question.

Can we ride it again?