Pour your Money Down this Hole

The city of Rocklin, California is getting into the adventure theme park business.

Well, maybe they are. We’re not actually sure yet. It all centers on a big hole in the ground.

My Sycamore Detective Agency series takes place in Rocklin, and quite a bit of the fictional action in the third book takes place in the real-life quarry pit formerly known as the Big Gun.

For full disclosure, in order to maintain my impeccable record of journalistic integrity, I must admit that I have quite a bit of personal heartburn with the city of Rocklin regarding this particular quarry pit. It sits smack in the middle of the older part of town, and it used to have a really (arguably) cool old barn on the property. It also had two huge wooden masts – literally masts from old ships – standing high above the pit on either end. They were the derrick crane masts that were used to bring the enormous blocks of granite up out of the pit, and they were strung together with massive steel cables to keep them upright.

The city politely listened to all the Rocklin Historical Society folks about the need to preserve the very historical building and masts, and then tore it all down the next day to build an amusement park.

I really don’t like that some of the cool real-life old historical stuff in my book is no longer there, but at least they left the big hole in the ground. That’s something, I guess.

Truth be told in this situation, I’m really more concerned about the fact that a government entity (that takes my money from me) thinks it’s a good idea to get into the business of building and operating an entertainment venue. Here’s why:

Last year, the city unveiled their grand plan of putting zip lines over the big hole and putting spikes and ropes and such in the walls of the quarry so adventurous adventurers could climb up and down. It was going to be amazing.

Tickets went on pre-sale before Christmas in anticipation of the adventurous grand summer opening adventure. There were fun pictures that someone from the city drew up of what all the adventure would probably look like really soon. There were even going to be cargo nets and maybe even slides!

For around a hundred dollars per happy adventurer, we could buy season passes.

Based on the five-hundred-dollar price tag and the fact that, at that point, the site was nothing more than a muddy, deserted, demolished old quarry hole, our family politely declined the amazing pre-purchase opportunity.

I forgot about the whole thing as the winter went on, and apparently so did all the people in charge of building it. Winter moved into spring, and around May, I started to get the impression – mainly because absolutely nothing had been constructed yet – that the park might not be ready by the time school got out.

Lo and behold, just the other day I heard a radio report on the new Rocklin Adventure Park. It seems the city had to break the news to all the nice folks who bought season passes that their dreams of summer fun zip-lining over a giant hole would not be realized. Seems the facility isn’t quite ready – meaning it still looks almost exactly like it did in May.

They have a new (wildly optimistic) estimated opening day of August 31^st, conveniently, for the parents of the greater Rocklin area, after school is back in session. But don’t worry, folks, your season passes will still be valid for the whole season, whatever that may end up being defined as.

Oh, and one other tiny little tidbit the news story mentioned – the city needs another $1.3 million, give or take, to get the project completed.

Wow, you might say, $1.3 million seems like more than enough money to string some zip lines over a quarry pit, let alone as an add-on to get the project competed. What did they say they needed the extra $1.3 million for, specifically?

Oh, nothing major. Just restrooms and a food court.

I am not making that up.

The people that take my money to run my city forgot to include toilets at their amusement park.

Let that sink in for a minute while they have a meeting and ask themselves for another $1,300,000. Think they’ll say yes to themselves?

Actually, Rocklin, better make it $1.5 million. That way you can buy some toilet paper, too.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

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Hazard Pay

This weekend I met the man with the most dangerous job in America. Actually he was a high school kid, I think. He looked to be about thirty to forty years younger than me, and approximately ninety to a hundred years younger than I feel, so that would put him around high school age.

He was obviously too young to fully grasp the gravity of his situation, so to speak. No experienced adult male would have ever signed up for the job this kid had.

We met him on a magical day. We got season passes to our local water slide park this year, and Saturday was opening day of the season. We arrived early and staked out our chaise lounges, and then the boys and I rushed off to The Riptide. It's the park’s brand new ride, and the boys and I have been salivating over it all winter.

It’s an enormous water slide - easily the tallest in the park - with four-person “quad tubes” so you can experience near-death with three of your closest friends, much like the time you let Steve drive the car on spring break.

You are in charge of getting your own quad tube to the top of the stairs, and they are apparently made out of equal parts ballistic rubber, lead weights and more lead weights. I can envision a system where two adults would be able to carry the massive tubes up the stairs together, but unfortunately, the boys weren’t much help. After a few minutes of tripping over each other and almost crushing Son Number Three with it, I reluctantly told the boys that I needed to carry the tube up the stairs myself.

The Riptide is a very high water slide, so we needed to climb up a lot of steps to reach the top. I lost count when I came close to blacking out, but it was probably about three thousand stairs. I didn’t have my Fitbit on, but I’m pretty sure I burned an entire HomeTown Buffet’s dinner rush worth of calories on that one climb.

The slide takes you down a steep tube and then rockets your terrified party of four up a gigantic vertical wall, where you hang motionless at the top for just a split second before your stomach catches up to you. Then, through a miracle of engineering (or a nightmarish trial and error period), you slide back down, directly into another cavernous tube that takes you around a 360-degree turn and into a huge pool of water, where lifeguards await to accept your deepest gratitude for being alive. It is awesome!

We finally reached the top of the stairs and made it onto the platform high above the park. After I had managed to get my heart rate back under four hundred and my blurry vision cleared up, I saw him. The man with the most dangerous job in America. Just a scrawny kid with a whistle around his neck and zinc oxide on his nose. He wasn’t the one who was directing traffic at the entrance to the slide, so it wasn’t immediately clear what purpose he served.

He welcomed us to The Riptide and then asked me and the boys to all step up onto the four-foot-square industrial scale located on the corner of the platform.

Apparently, in order to keep groups of fun-loving patrons from shooting straight up off the top of the vertical wall and into orbit, or missing the exit tube and dying a horrible death under a nine hundred-pound quad tube, The Riptide has a weight range. Your group's total weight has to be between two hundred and seven hundred pounds in order to ride. This kid’s job was to enforce the minimum and maximum weight limits.

Let me get this straight, kid. They've got you stationed up here on a platform, seventy feet off the ground, with no safety harness or anything, and your job is to ask groups of women in bathing suits to step on a scale so you can weigh them?

I’m not sure $8.50 an hour constitutes hazard pay. Good luck, kid. You’re a braver man than me.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!