One of the themes I’m starting to see in our travels is that we often visit places I learned about or could only experience as a kid through books, images, television shows, or movies. When you don’t travel much as a kid, you’re stuck with your imagination and other people’s versions and interpretations of a place. There’s a longing in your heart maybe when you get older to go back and see things for yourself; a desire to make those childhood wishes become realities.
After you finally get to one of those places, in person, there’s a moment of triumph. When you move from the written word or pictures in a book to the real place, there is a wonderful feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. When the place you travel to is even greater than you imagined, that’s even better.
One example of this is when we visited Hersheypark. When I was a kid, I spent hours and hours at the Boys and Girls Club. Starting at 7 years old, Mom would drop me off there every Saturday morning and every weekday each summer. When school was out, Mom still had to work and the Boys and Girls Club was an inexpensive and fun alternative to staying at a neighborhood babysitter.
We would usually play sports all day and enter contests for minuscule prizes like miniature Hershey candies, Smarties, or an occasional Chik O Stick but playing pinball machines was often the highlight of my day. Those simple machines brought me so much joy and provided an escape, a fantasy world I could go to through sounds and images. I could travel to space on the Star Trek machine, I could go under the Earth with Gorgar, or I could bounce around a mansion with the Haunted House machine.
(Henry trying out some pinball at the Pinball Hall of Fame asking me if this is what I did all day when I was a kid)
At 25 cents a game it was cheap entertainment, but it also gave you the chance to earn a victory and win more excursions through imaginative dreamscapes. My lessons in pinball were early lessons in the good and bad parts of American meritocracy and capitalism. If I played well I could earn an extra ball. If I really worked hard, focused, concentrated, and improved each day, I could even earn an extra game!
It’s not lost on me now as a 50 year old teacher still living paycheck to paycheck, that in my daily quest to get the sacred red SPECIAL light to turn on by completing all of the nearly impossible tasks on the machine in order to win an extra game, I was simultaneously enriching the invisible pinball machine coin collecting owner. 😂
(Pinball Hall of Fame from Las Vegas Then and Now)
After years of playing these machines and heading into the teenage part of life, I was ready to move beyond the games at the Boys and Girls Club. As I got more freedom, my friends and I started riding our bikes, then driving our cars to every 7-11 near our houses and the Club to find new machines to master. Three machines really stand out in my memory for evoking emotion and good times—all produced by the Williams Company-The Comet, The Cyclone, and The Funhouse. My friends and I would play these machines at all hours of the night and day. As I got older and read more, I realized these machines were modeled after actual places and actual rides.
So, when I started to research Hersheypark in Pennsylvania and realized they had the famous Comet roller coaster, the ride that the pinball machine I spent a childhood trying to beat was based on, we had to go! Friends and family told us to go to this park for years but it was always just a little too far away for us to give it a try. Finally, we did and it was as everyone promised: a great park with an interesting founder’s story, a candy wonderland with every imaginable sweetened delight in the world, and yes, it had the old Comet still in operation all these years later. Plus, it had the Comet pinball machine!
When you enter Hersheypark you can choose to tour the Hershey Chocolate World first before the gates to the park with the big rides open up. This is worth your time! It is a literal trip to CANDYLAND. You can take a ride on the Chocolate Tour for free where you can witness the journey of a cocoa bean transforming to a wrapped Hershey bar in about 20 or 30 minutes. It’s a great way to start your day! We looked at all of the candy we knew we would buy later after we exited the park so we didn’t need to find a place to store it while riding the roller coasters.
Once we had our fill of Chocolate World, we lined up ready to get an early jump on the rides with the longest wait times. Hersheypark is a big park with tons of rides for small children and teenagers. In our heads we expected it to be much smaller but it was the equivalent if not bigger than Busch Gardens our state’s home park. It was also super clean and the workers were very friendly. It felt like a true family park with something for everyone.
After riding some of the old fashioned wooden coasters, we rode some of the more modern metal ones all of which were preparation for the rides of the day: the old school Comet and the park’s wonderfully fun and fast Candemonium.
As we approached the Comet, I had to hold back the tears. I am not sure if it was that I was thinking of myself as a kid all of those Saturday mornings and endless summer days never going anywhere trying to find some joy at the Boys and Girls Club with a quarter. Or, if it was that I was having so much fun now as an adult with my own kids watching them enjoy time together, traveling with each other and knowing they know they are loved. Maybe it was both.
Whatever emotions were surfacing, it was necessary to put them aside because it was time to finally RIIIIIIIIIIIIDE the COMET!
But, before riding the Comet, we went in search of the old pinball machine in Hersheypark’s arcade and sure enough there it was; the bad news however is that it was broken and turned off. The kids looked at me knowing my disappointment. Little did they know though, all those years at the Boys and Girls Club taught me a thing or two. I reached under the machine and found the switch and turned the game on. In a flash all of the lights popped on and the sounds brought the old machine back to life. Henry was the most impressed. He couldn’t figure out how I had fixed it!
We played a few games on it even with a broken flipper and it was all good times and good memories.
Now, it was time to ride the real Comet.
We have an old saying in our family which started with some friends in college and the saying is “You can only do something for the first time once.” When it comes to roller coasters, we always wait the extra 30 minutes or so when riding a new one in order to experience it for the first time from the front seat, our favorite vantage point.
We waited in line for the front seat of the Comet and it was a little rough but did not disappoint. It was old school for sure but pure joy.
Afterwards, we walked over to one of the parks’ most recently built roller coasters which can compete with any we have ever ridden before, the one with the chocolate painted tracks, Candymonium.
We waited for the front seat and raced out and back around the front of the park at top speeds. The ride was smooth and creamy just like the $80.00 worth of Hershey products we bought as we exited for the day.
If you are ever near Hershey, Pennsylvania make sure you spend a day with your favorite candy characters and enjoy some nostalgia, good snacks, and great fun. I waited a lifetime to get there, and that was too long. Hop in the car and go! You won’t regret it!