I haven’t been to an “amusement park” in over forty years, and I’m not about to start back up. I have two categories of amusement park: “Lakeside” and “everything else.”

“Everything else” includes Kings Dominion, about an hour north of Richmond on I-95. When it opened in around 1976, we of course had to go. High points included a concert by Andy Gibb (who died not long after) and the roller coaster. Low points included acres of sizzling black asphalt without a trace of grass anywhere (designed to make us thirsty for more overpriced sodas?), the prohibition on picnic lunches coupled with the approximately one-hour line in front of every (very expensive) eatery on the premises, and the pre-monorail drive through the lion park.

Allow me to dwell a moment on the lion/safari park. We drove through in a long line of cars, with strict instructions to keep the windows rolled up since there were lions lounging at distances easily spanned by one mildly energetic leap. However, this injunction was coupled with the fact that many people didn’t have air conditioning in their cars in those days, so some people simply disregarded this advice. I will never forget the car in front of us during one of our many stops. They saw a lion resting on the shoulder of the road, and when they came along side, they not only chose not to roll up their window, but also held the baby up to the same window for a better look.

I learned some years later that the safari park had closed permanently, only a few years after the installation of the monorail. I can only hope they did something not entirely reprehensible with the animals.

Now bring Lakeside Amusement Park into my memory palace, like a soft cool breeze on a scorcher of an August afternoon. First, no sweltering carnivores. Second, a small bracelet to indicate you had paid your two-dollar entrance fee and could have access to the rides, including the magnificent roller coaster, at no additional charge (which made it possible for us to work on our world record of twenty-two roller coaster rides back-to-back). Third, a grove of shade trees with picnic tables, where we would sit for one of my family’s epic picnic lunches, which would be certain to contain a huge supply of my mother’s fried chicken.

Lakeside was somewhere near Roanoke, Virginia, if I remember correctly, and eventually succumbed to the Wal-mart-style competition from Kings Dominion and its ilk. But in the arena of things that truly matter, Lakeside was untouchable.