I never really saw Labor Day as the end of summer because growing up in South Louisiana it was still hot as hell past Halloween. And, we started school in mid August, which was a form of slow torture (I mean as torturous as a bunch of private school kids can be tortured). But, nowadays living in “Yankee Land” I do like to mark Labor Day as the dry run peace out to summer with of course the Fall Equinox being the official adieu to summer. For over a month, thanks to a Facebook ad, I got so psyched to plan my Labor Day weekend around watching Class Action Park, a documentary about Northern New Jersey’s most notorious waterpark.
As I watched Class Action Park (which I would also call “Chris Gethard and Friends Reflect on How Bad Ass They Were in the 80’s”), it made me think of three things. Well, more than three things, but three things for a list’s sake:
I never went to Action Park because I didn’t live in New Jersey but if I did, would I have been bad-ass enough to go?
My Momma forbade me from going to water parks because they were mostly “death traps” and heck, I never even went to summer camp because I was too afraid to sleep away from home. (Even day camp terrified me because I’d rather be home watching
“David the Gnome” and doing mystical mermaid dancing in the living room than sharing Hi-C juice boxes with the other children.)I didn’t need water parks or summer camp because my momma and dad were able to create summer experiences for me that were just as gnarly, totally tubular and rad and arguably maybe even more gnarly, rad and bad-ass than Action Park and any summer camp experience combined.
The minute I got out of school in late May up until the minute school started back in mid August, my momma, dad and I left the hot, humid and boring (to me) suburb of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and headed up to the crisp, cool and magical Smokey Mountains of Western North Carolina. (I can’t tell you the exact town. The locals would kill me.) Many times, we would caravan, Momma and I in her SUV and my dad in his sports car, the whole time Momma saying, “Your daddy doesn’t know how to the hell to drive.”
I was (and still am) an only child and I was made to understand at a young age that I had the luxury of choosing between two cars and two parents. Our drive up to the Smokey Mountains was about 10 hours that was sometimes split up halfway at the La Quinta Inn in Montgomery, Alabama. (Who the hell needs Camp MerriFeather or whatever your camp was called when you have a LaQuinta Inn with a Cracker Barrel next door?)
“Well, Brooke, this doesn’t sound so dangerous or daring”, you may be saying. And, you’d be right. Again, my brain works best in lists, so I will now share with you a list, in no particular order of all our summer escapades that were bordering on the danger zone. Maybe not as dangerous as Alpine Village (watch the Class Action documentary to know that reference), but they were still pretty dog-gone bad to the bone (as my dad would say).
MAKE THIS YOUR BEST SUMMER EVER
ACTIVITIES YOU CAN ENJOY AT CAMP CHEZ HOOVER:
See three “very nice young men” walking on the side of the road. Offer to pick them up and give them a ride. Find out they’re Scottish caddies at a nearby golf club. Bring them back to their golf course.
Invite said caddies over to your home on their next day off, to do their laundry and feed them jambalaya. If and when you hear something like a sonic boom, run down your mountainous driveway to find their overturned vehicle (a school bus with flowers and smiley faces painted on it) stuck in a ditch. Run back up the mountainous driveway to call a tow truck. Wait for the tow truck by doing some contortions to go inside the magical school bus (because you want to check out the inside, of course)
Gather eggs from your neighbor’s yard and play dodge the rooster. Brownie points if you can get on the trampoline without the rooster pecking you. Clearly, the rooster is more protective of his trampoline than his hens.
Play putt putt on a homemade mini golf course at an “arcade” (or the best place to buy weed) with your two best friends who are your age while a bunch of adults, more than half of whom are high as kites, jam out to a guy singing Cat Stevens covers. Until I was 25, I thought “Moon Shadow” was an original song written by that man at the arcade.
Midnight boating - get a bunch of your family friends and sneak onto your boats. Beware, Momma will always win the “who can hold the split between your deck boat and Wave Runner the longest” contest
Learn how to be your own water stunt double - pull the kill switch on the WaveRunner just in the knick of time to end up with an impaled WaveRunner on a rock. But accomplish a terrifying and comedic landing to rival John Candy’s waterskiing scene in “The Great Outdoors” (Yep, that was me at the age of 11. Take THAT Action Park. Miraculously I wasn’t hurt. Scratch that- my ears hurt like hell after Momma yelled, “What the hell were you thinking?!??!” at me for about an hour.)
Find the most desirable island on the lake. Name it “Slug Island.” Clean it up. Bring your weed-eater and cut some “unsightly” bushes. Purchase “no trespassing” signs and post them on trees. Let anyone else who sets foot on the island know that “the island is taken.”
Purchase a CB radio for your SUV. As the truckers if you should be aware of any alligators on the side of the road. Befriend said truckers and thank them for their help. Meet said truckers at the nearest truck stop. Pretend to be exchange students from U.S.S.R. and not speak any English because you’re kind of afraid to talk to the truckers. But, Momma (who goes by the handle Curly Q) sure as hell isn’t.
Another Lake Day : Notice an abandoned school on the lake while out on the boat. Figure out how to get to said school via SUV later on that evening. Sneak onto the abandoned school’s property to break into said school. Why, you ask? So Momma can see if they have any “old timey school chairs”, naturally.
There are many other things not on this list, including more “normal” summer activities like playing laser tag on the side of a mountain at night, white water rafting and sliding down a large rock into a freezing cold creek not to mention visiting Dollywood, Cherokee and Ober Gatlinburg. But that stuff almost seems “basic” in comparison. Those were definitely and will always be some of the best summers of my life.
It wasn’t all guns and roses though, y’all. Many kids got hazed at Action Park and/or at summer camp, so I’ve heard. If I whined about anything at all, I got taunted (by my parents) saying they would drop me off at a boarding school on a hill where the students had to milk cows. My momma and dad would drill into me, “Stop your whining. You have it more than lucky than most. We are gonna leave you at Rabun Gap Country School.” I was mostly sad because I knew my experiences with my parents would be much more fun and adventurous than living away from home with a bunch of girls my age (milking the cows would’ve been the only saving grace). They never dropped me off there, thank God. I would’ve missed out on a lot of fun Camp Chez Hoover.
While most of the kids would come back telling tales of their glorious summer camps, laughing at inside jokes, and showing off battle scars, I would come home knowing I had some crazy experiences that were wilder than getting your first period and first kiss at Camp Winnebago or banging up your knee on Cannonball Loop. I also knew I probably shouldn’t share many of my experiences because the authorities may or may not report Momma and Dad to the Department of Social Services. But, then again, it was the 80’s after all.
Epilogue:
Momma watched Class Action Park. Her thoughts? “I watched the whole thing straight through. Baby, that sh*t was crazy. I wonder why their mommas even let them go to that death trap. Or maybe their mommas didn’t even know.”
Afterward:
I have to confess to y’all that I did once go to a water park. It was in Destin, Florida and it was called Big Kahuna’s (We used to drive by it many o’ time on the way to the beach, Momma shouting “man, that looks like a huge death trap. Bob, keep your eyes on the road!”). Several years later, when my mom and my dad divorced, my dad took my three friends and me. Of course Momma didn’t know. I stubbed my toe something fierce while waiting in line for a water slide. I saw some red stuff on the ground by me and thought I’d cut my toe open (I later learned it was ketchup). Still, I thought I was pretty cool- even if I was wearing a t-shirt over my bathing suit. But, Momma was right. Big Kahuna was kind of a death trap. And, it didn’t compare to impaling that WaveRunner on a rock.
