Sliding back in time

If you haven’t been to a water park lately – or ever — find one and go there immediately. That’s your assignment this summer. It is a surefire way to act like a kid again without anyone looking at you funny. Every year, at the start of our New Jersey shore vacation, we go to the water park on Long Beach Island, courtesy of Grandpa Sal and Grandma Dor, and we have the best time every time.

As I hopped into my bright blue inner tube this morning and sped down the winding water slide with is twists and turns and tunnels and dips, I could almost imagine I was a teen-ager again, something that was definitely helped along by the fact that Men at Work, The Clash and other 80’s icons where blaring through the park’s music system. It was as if I had stepped back in time to find a much younger version of myself standing there waiting for the lifeguard to give me the high sign that it was safe for me to launch my tube and make the brief but exhilarating trip to the pool below, where, if you’re not careful, there is always the possibility that you will get dumped out of your tube and under the water.

We also took a family float on the “Lazy, Crazy River,” which is sometimes lazy, meaning you just loll along in your inner tube minding your own business, and sometimes crazy, meaning water shoots at you from every direction and waves push along until you inevitably end up directly underneath the giant bucket of water two stories up that tips over and pummels you into submission. This time I held on to Dennis and Olivia’s double tube for dear life in order to keep my double tube with Chiara at the helm from heading directly into the path of the dreaded bucket, which is only dreaded if you’re under 4 or over 40, I think. Noah sits under the thing waiting for it to drench him.

Pictures will be coming soon...