The Scariest Ride
As I've said before, it was nice to work at Idora Park. There was so much to do there. There was good food to eat and you could go on the rides for free as long as it wasn't busy. And there were always a lot of pretty girls to pick up.
But the truth is, when you worked at Idora Park, more times than not, the girls were going to Idora Park that came to pick up the guys who worked there.
Now one day, I was walking around the park making sure all the games had prizes and stuff, and I noticed two girls standing in line at the Wildcat. I really didn't have anything to do right then, so I thought that I would join them. I got in the car right behind them.
Now, I will be the first to tell you I don't ride rides anymore – it's that vertigo thing. But when I was younger, I rode the Wildcat almost every day.
You know it's funny as I write this I can still hear in the back of my mind that clickety-clack that the Wildcat ride used to make. I can remember the jolt the ride gave you when you went around the corner or ready to go up another hill. I can remember the screams of people riding the ride, some of them screams of laughter and some of them screams of being afraid. But you could always bet that at least 80% of the people who rode that ride wanted to get right back on.
Not to get off the subject, but if you want some memories of Idora Park, you can go to the Tyler History Center in downtown Youngstown until mid-March 2018. The Idora Park Experience Museum has a bunch of their pieces on display. In fact when you walk through the first set of glass doors and you look to your right, there is one of the Idora Park wildcat cars.
And just so you know if you looked at my last blog, is a picture of Robin and me in a Tilt-A-Whirl car – that’s also at the Tyler History Center and you can take a picture of yourself or have someone take a picture with you sitting in the original Tilt-A-Whirl ride car from Idora Park.
Well anyway, after the ride was over I treated the girls to french fries and we walked around the park for a little while. And as we're enjoying our Idora Park french fries, I heard over the PA system, “Mr. Horvath, please go to the Wildcat.” Then I heard, “Mr. Duffy, come to the Wildcat.”
Then, “All the available maintenance crew, please come to the Wildcat.”
Obviously, there was something going on at the Wildcat. With all this happening, I knew something had to be wrong.
So I walked from the upper Midway down by the Wildcat. Luckily, this was one of the slower days. But as I looked up, I could see one of the Wildcat cars stuck right before you go down the first large hill.
Now from there, I couldn't tell if it came off the track or what happened. But I will admit I was glad that that wasn't me stuck up there, when I had taken a ride on the wildcat a short while before this happened.
They wanted to do everything to ensure people’s safety. So the first thing you know, probably five minutes later, a large fire engine truck with the ladder on it showed up. They figured that would be the easiest and safest way to get them down. The only problem with that was that the ladder didn't go that high.
You see, Youngstown didn't have that many tall buildings back then and at the height of the Wildcat which is where the car stopped was seven stories high.
They were telling the people in the ride just to stay calm and they would get them down. But to get them down, they would have to have them walk down the ride along the tracks until they could reach the ladder from the fire truck.
Now, at this time, they weren't exactly sure why the ride stopped working, but they knew they had to stop the ride from moving while the people were walking down the track. So, first, part of the maintenance crew got up there and worked on the ride.
This is one of the times I was glad I wasn't on the maintenance crew because that was a far way up to work on something needless to say.
Once they got the car fixed so it couldn't move, they got the people out of the cars and told them to hold on to the rail as they walk down the ride.
Every year they replaced a part of the Wildcat so they didn't have to worry about the rails or anything breaking while the people were using them to brace themselves as they walk down the ride.
As I said, it was a slow day and there was only around six people on the ride. They all got down and no one was hurt.
After the people were taken care of and the fire truck was gone, they started working on the Wildcat again. By the end of the day they had it working again.
Mr. Duffy who was always cautious, though, and he left the ride closed the next day and had them keep on testing it before he would open it the following day.
I missed the scariest ride. Lucky me!
See you on the Midway!