According to the Farmer’s Almanac and calendar no-it-alls, it’s still summer, for one more day.  The autumnal equinox occurs tomorrow, September 23, bringing with it the first day of fall.  I’d thought the summer had slipped away, but it hasn’t quite.  A couple of months ago, I’d intended to write several posts on summer places.  But the days passed, filled with other preoccupations.  On this very last day of summer, I’ll try to make up for lost time.  First up, Coney Island.

I was about five years old the first time I heard of Coney Island.   It sounded magical and exotic, an ideal, seaside summer place.   Neighbors of my grandmother in Kentucky had just returned from there, and they spoke of it in glowing terms.  It was way up north near New York City.  There were roller coasters, carousels, and a huge Ferris wheel right on the beach.  I’d never seen any ocean then.  I’d been no farther north than Ashland, Kentucky, and no farther south than Waycross, Georgia.  (Daddy’s job in public health occasionally took him to Waycross, and Mama and I went with him a few times.  While it sounds like small peanuts, I remember it as a very cool place, home of the Okefenokee Swamp, a great Holiday Inn pool, and crumbling antebellum mansions.) Anyway, that family’s Coney Island experience made quite an impression. I vowed someday I’d see it for myself.   

By the time I was living in New Jersey, twenty-something years later, Coney Island sounded decidedly less magical.  But I was still intrigued.  One Saturday in June before I moved back to Atlanta, H and I drove up for the day.   

We were in H’s enormous 1968 Chevy Impala SS (last car on the right, above).  I’d gone with him to Trenton in the spring to buy it for $450.  Battered and well past its prime, it was the perfect car for Coney Island in 1993.  Like the faded amusement park, it could be seen to possess an inimitable air of tough deadbeat cool.  We parked right next to the old Thunderbolt roller coaster; there were no vast, well-maintained parking lots as at a typical Six Flags.  The Thunderbolt, opened in 1925 and out of use since 1982, sat decaying behind a rusted chain link fence.  At first I thought it was the famous Coney Island Cyclone.  It didn’t look safe at all.  But, on the bright side, there was no crowd. 

Then I spotted the Cyclone, across the way.  In comparison to the decrepit Thunderbolt, it looked positively spiffy.

The above photo shows the Cyclone from the top of the Wonder Wheel.  The classic white wooden coaster dates from 1927.  It’s not especially tall.  It doesn’t look particularly impressive if compared to sky-high roller coasters of the twenty-first century. There are no full loops.  The cars don’t hang upside down.  It doesn’t go backwards.  It’s associated with no blockbuster movie franchise.  But it is one memorable, absolutely thrilling ride. 

On that sunny summer Saturday, the queue for the Cyclone was  surprisingly short, almost nonexistent.  At H’s insistence, we waited out one run so we could get the front car on the next one.  As a little boy at Seabreeze Amusement Park in Rochester, his grandfather taught him that for the complete coaster experience, one must ride in the first car.  We got in.  When the safety bar came down, I thought there must be some mistake.  There was way too much room between the bar and my lap.  In fact there was space for someone several times my size, or for me and a couple of friends on my lap.  I was afraid I’d fly out on the first dip.  I anchored my elbows forcefully into the worn vinyl padding of the bar. 

The cars lurched, and we were off, chugging slowly up the first hill.  At the top, there was that suspense-filled pause, and suddenly we were hurtling downward.  Thrillingly, alarmingly.  The first descent is banked precipitously, and I hunkered lower, dug my elbows in harder. We were back up, rounded a turn, and then we were headed down again, screaming, laughing.  It was exhilarating. 

At the end of the ride, when the little train arrived at the platform, we were laughing and wind-blown, like all the other riders.  H’s shirt had become completely unbuttoned.  My bra had come unhooked.  We had been warned to secure all valuables.  According to the attendant, false teeth, glasses, jewelry, wigs and even underwear had been found on the tracks.  I can see why. 

Back then, you could stay on for another ride at no cost if you chose.  We both wanted a repeat, but we needed some time to collect ourselves, to button up, to recover from the thrill.  To prepare to be thrilled again.

Reliving the memory, I think, as I have many times over the years:  we’ve got to go to Coney Island with our daughter.  Not surprisingly, she’s a roller coaster fan. 

Next: More Coney Island

As we proceeded with our walk through the heart of London, I maintained my role as a somewhat muddled and conflicted tour guide.  It was with relief that I found the lacy, Gothic-style towers of Parliament and all the buildings of Westminster Palace in their expected spots, keeping watch over the Thames.  Their honey-colored stone gleamed warmly in the sunlight; I had never seen them looking so pristine.  The last traces of Industrial Revolution coal-dust grime were blasted away in 1994.  

Although reduced in number and usage, classic examples of the red telephone box still punctuate the streets of London.  That they tend to be surrounded by international tourists snapping photos with their phones strikes me as an interesting irony,  further proof that our twenty-first century world is nothing if not meta.   

The ever-present London Eye grew larger as we made our way down the Victoria Embankment alongside the river.  Perhaps because I was distracted by the giant Ferris wheel, I completely missed one of my favorite London statues, that of the formidable Boadicea driving her chariot into battle against the Romans.  Back home, when I looked for her on Google maps, I found her exactly where she should have been, on the Embankment near Westminster Pier.  It was dismaying to realize I had walked blindly past the Warrior Queen. 

When we paused to rest on one of the Embankment’s sphinx-armed benches, our daughter noticed that our sunglasses reflected double rings of the London Eye.  

When in London, one is gifted (or afflicted), with London eyes. 

From the Embankment, we approached Trafalgar Square.  Since its completion in 1724, the neoclassical Church of Saint Martin-in-the Fields has anchored a corner of  the square.  James Gibbs’ design, with a tall, graceful steeple resembling a multi-layer wedding cake, continues to influence the building of Protestant churches throughout the U.S.  I regret that we didn’t squeeze in a visit to the café in the church’s roomy, atmospheric crypt.  It’s a great place to refuel and revive after wandering the halls of the National Gallery across the square. 

This photo from 1982 shows the church from the steps of the National Gallery. 

On the day of our visit, Trafalgar Square and the steps leading to the Gallery were awash in a teeming tide of humanity.  I had hoped to show my daughter some of my favorite paintings, but the crowds made me lose heart.  Spring break in London, as in Paris, has its drawbacks.  It seemed futile even to try to elbow our way over to one of the grand lions that guard Lord Nelson’s column.  Somewhat appropriately, in the waning afternoon light, the National Gallery takes on a grim, fortress-like aspect in the photo above. 

On a less hectic day in the summer of 1982, Lord Nelson’s lions, and the Gallery itself, were more accessible. 

We decided to flee the area.  But a quick departure was impossible  due to the press of the crowd.  Had I never been in London during the week before Easter?   Maybe not.  During my year in the U.K., I returned home once, and that was for Easter.  Maybe the city’s always as congested at this time of the season.  Better to assume that’s the case than to think it’s been spoiled recently. 

I know I’m not alone in occasionally wishing myself nearly alone (with a hand-picked group of family and friends) to experience the marvels of the world’s great cities.  As we made our way back, slowly, toward Grosvenor Square and our hotel, I considered the advantages of conducting future British travel from the serenity of the sofa via PBS and Netflix.  Under the expert guidance of, say, earnest young Endeavor Morse, or Benedict Cumberbatch’s otherworldly Sherlock, or the bright-eyed, sensibly shoed Miss Marple, one may witness matters of life and death set amidst notable U. K. monuments, without ever battling a crowd.  The older I get, the more tempting that sounds. 

No doubt about it: I was a tourist in the city that had once been home. The experience was as unsettling as I had anticipated.  Familiar buildings turned up in unexpected places.  My identifications were often completely wrong.  That building there–I think it’s the Horse Guards. . .  What does that even mean?   I used to know.  Oh, it doesn’t matter–it’s not the Horse Guards at all.  Too many landmarks looked different, not because of any real changes, but because of the frayed edges of memory.  This is what I had feared.

Reassuringly, some sights, such as Buckingham Palace, were much as I remembered them.  Its gardens of red and yellow tulips were spectacular on this bright spring day.

A major change, though, is the fact that the London Eye is visible from nearly every point in the city.  I hadn’t expected it to be such a background constant.

The Victoria Memorial and the Palace Gates were as grand as ever. 

St. James’s Park was dressed up in the Easter-basket colors of early spring.

Westminster Abbey hadn’t picked up and walked away.  It was whiter and cleaner than I’d ever seen it before.  During my first visit, in 1975, it was still blackened with nineteenth-century soot.

The lawn of the Cloister was perfectly manicured in that oh-so-British style.

During a visit in July 1982, my friends and I posed with a group of jolly actors in period costume outside the Abbey.  I tried to recreate the photo with H on this trip, but the results only highlighted time’s passage, and not in a good way.

Some prominent landmarks kindled no spark of recognition.  One example is this monumental building facing Westminster Abbey.  It’s Methodist Central Hall, dating from 1911.  As a lifelong Methodist, I’m disappointed in myself that I have no recollection of it.  The headquarters of the United Methodist Church in the U.K., it serves as a conference center, concert venue and home to a large congregation with a vital and active mission. The expansive auditorium topped by its enormous dome was meant to evoke  open-air camp meeting pavilions, such as that in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.  Next visit, I’ll remember.  Also, I’m going inside.

In the Tuileries, with the Louvre behind.

Like so many tourists, our daughter finds she can walk on water
near I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid.

The Grand Palais, an enormous exhibition hall on the Champs-Élysées,
was built for the World’s Fair, held in Paris in 1900.

The interior of the glass-domed Grand Palais abounds with sinuous Art Nouveau ironwork.

More Grand Palais elegance in iron and glass.

The Grand Mosque of Paris, which dates from 1926.

The Odeon Theatre, near the Luxembourg Gardens.
The present building dates from 1819.

A typically grand Paris doorway.

Interior view of the Pantheon.

The Sorbonne.

Produce vendors along the rue Mouffetard.
On weekday mornings, the long, narrow street is the ideal setting for a moveable feast.

A pedestrian-only street, the rue du Pot-de-Fer, or Street of the Iron Pot.
Like rue Mouffetard, which it intersects, and several in the area, it
escaped demolition during Haussmann’s revisioning of Paris.  

The staircase in our hotel.