Astroworld Goes South
The ride didn't seem dangerous. It was a big, black octopus-looking thing, with fingers branching off arms and passenger tubs dangling from the fingers. The tubs spun. The fingers spun. The whole shootin' match spun.
I think the ride's name, in fact, was The Octopus, or maybe The Black Widow, or maybe Kid Killer.
Astroworld opened in 1968, and our first family visit came either that year, the next or perhaps the next. I really don't remember.
There wasn't much there to ride at the time. There was the skyway, the train, The Swamp Buggy, The Octopus and a few other things.
I had no business getting aboard The Octopus. However, there weren't any rules at the time to keep me from riding it, so Dad and I waited in line and climbed aboard.
We then were treated to what remains to this day as the most horrifying few minutes of my life.
I was too small for the ride, so as we whirled and spun, I started to become airborne, and the safety rail was not going to prevent me from sailing off and being killed. So Dad swung his leg over my legs and pinned me down until the ride mercifully ended.
Mom to this day says she's never seen the ashen facial expressions quite like the ones we sported as we got off that ride.
This was my first - and most vivid - memory of Astroworld, which sadly closed its doors this weekend after 37 years of top-notch amusement, sans the whirling tentacles of death of my first visit.
Real estate prices combined with dropping attendance contributed to the park's demise. I haven't been there in years, but I still felt a sense of sadness and loss when I heard of its closing. I went to Astroworld many times as a kid and then some more as an adult. I liked it better than Six Flags Over Texas up in Arlington and even Disneyland in California. The park had character, and some kick-ass rides, too, like the Texas Cyclone, my favorite roller coaster ever.
The Cyclone's first drop was a doozy, and that rickety sound that only wooden roller coasters can make added to the thrill.
I have fond memories of some of those old rides, like the Alpine Sleigh Ride, where your car ascends a mountain and then plunges its way back down through a series of tunnels. There was a tunnel where you yelled stuff, and then when you got to the next tunnel, they piped in a recording of what you yelled. There was a cold tunnel, and then in the last tunnel, there was a guy dressed as a Yete to scare you. They tore down the Alpine Sleigh Ride years ago.
During my first Astroworld visit, my excitement was focused on The Swamp Buggy, this gigantic treelike structure in which the buggy ascended straight up in the middle, emerged out of a hole at the top and then corkscrewed down on a track running around the outside. It was an OK ride but certainly not worth the long wait.
I remember how great it was to be at Astroworld at night toward the season's end, when you could get off a ride, run back through the switchbacks and hop right back on without having to wait for hours. I also liked to try to get on the skyway in time for the spectacular fireworks show at around 10:30 p.m. Astroworld had great fireworks shows.
Years later, as a college student, I had 14th-row seats to an R.E.M. concert at the park's Southern Star Amphitheater. To this day, that show ranks among my Top 5 favorites. That was around 1984, on R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageants" tour, and it might have been my last time to go to Astroworld. (A concert ticket got you free park entrance. What a bargain!)
Recently, my sister and her family went to Astroworld to pay their respects. She told me that it didn't seem the same. The place was a little run-down, and the crowd was a bit rougher. Thugish, in fact.
I'm glad I didn't see it like that. I prefer remembering it in its glory days, when going to Astroworld meant being too excited to sleep the night before.
Or being unable to sleep for a few years after riding that hell-on-Earth Octopus.
I think the ride's name, in fact, was The Octopus, or maybe The Black Widow, or maybe Kid Killer.
Astroworld opened in 1968, and our first family visit came either that year, the next or perhaps the next. I really don't remember.
There wasn't much there to ride at the time. There was the skyway, the train, The Swamp Buggy, The Octopus and a few other things.
I had no business getting aboard The Octopus. However, there weren't any rules at the time to keep me from riding it, so Dad and I waited in line and climbed aboard.
We then were treated to what remains to this day as the most horrifying few minutes of my life.
I was too small for the ride, so as we whirled and spun, I started to become airborne, and the safety rail was not going to prevent me from sailing off and being killed. So Dad swung his leg over my legs and pinned me down until the ride mercifully ended.
Mom to this day says she's never seen the ashen facial expressions quite like the ones we sported as we got off that ride.
This was my first - and most vivid - memory of Astroworld, which sadly closed its doors this weekend after 37 years of top-notch amusement, sans the whirling tentacles of death of my first visit.
Real estate prices combined with dropping attendance contributed to the park's demise. I haven't been there in years, but I still felt a sense of sadness and loss when I heard of its closing. I went to Astroworld many times as a kid and then some more as an adult. I liked it better than Six Flags Over Texas up in Arlington and even Disneyland in California. The park had character, and some kick-ass rides, too, like the Texas Cyclone, my favorite roller coaster ever.
The Cyclone's first drop was a doozy, and that rickety sound that only wooden roller coasters can make added to the thrill.
I have fond memories of some of those old rides, like the Alpine Sleigh Ride, where your car ascends a mountain and then plunges its way back down through a series of tunnels. There was a tunnel where you yelled stuff, and then when you got to the next tunnel, they piped in a recording of what you yelled. There was a cold tunnel, and then in the last tunnel, there was a guy dressed as a Yete to scare you. They tore down the Alpine Sleigh Ride years ago.
During my first Astroworld visit, my excitement was focused on The Swamp Buggy, this gigantic treelike structure in which the buggy ascended straight up in the middle, emerged out of a hole at the top and then corkscrewed down on a track running around the outside. It was an OK ride but certainly not worth the long wait.
I remember how great it was to be at Astroworld at night toward the season's end, when you could get off a ride, run back through the switchbacks and hop right back on without having to wait for hours. I also liked to try to get on the skyway in time for the spectacular fireworks show at around 10:30 p.m. Astroworld had great fireworks shows.
Years later, as a college student, I had 14th-row seats to an R.E.M. concert at the park's Southern Star Amphitheater. To this day, that show ranks among my Top 5 favorites. That was around 1984, on R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageants" tour, and it might have been my last time to go to Astroworld. (A concert ticket got you free park entrance. What a bargain!)
Recently, my sister and her family went to Astroworld to pay their respects. She told me that it didn't seem the same. The place was a little run-down, and the crowd was a bit rougher. Thugish, in fact.
I'm glad I didn't see it like that. I prefer remembering it in its glory days, when going to Astroworld meant being too excited to sleep the night before.
Or being unable to sleep for a few years after riding that hell-on-Earth Octopus.
posted by Brian Pearson at 11:02 AM
1 Comments:
The Astroworld that closed in 2005 was not the same Astroworld that I remembered visiting in the early 1970's. A visit to the park usually occurred one time each summer, and it was a family trip unlike any other kind of trip.
I can still remember the excitement of arriving at the parking lot on the Astrodome side of 610 and taking the tram over the bridge into the park entrance. It felt like we had left Houston and were entering a completely different world. To a seven year old it felt like a paradise. The park seemed huge, and the time we spent felt like a full, family vacation trip.
I remember vividly some of rides, in particular the Swamp Buggy. Back then I didn't know the name, but I remember the tree-trunk with the roller-coaster spiralling around it. My dad and I waited a long time in line, but the ride was closed for repairs for the rest of the day. We had come so close to riding. What a disappointment! We still had a great time on other rides. The following year the Swamp Buggy had been removed from the park for good. I'm 37 years older now, but the excitement that I felt then as a seven year old stays with me to this day. I wonder if in today's world kids can still experience the joy and magic of visiting such a place with their family.
At the end of its 37 year run in 2005 Astroworld had become an anachronism. What remained was a much different park with a few artifacts of a much different place and time. I visited the park in 2004 for the last time and became very aware that MY Astroworld really no longer existed. The closing of the park in 2005 followed by it's removal from the grounds was a bit anticlimactic. These days when I happen to drive by and see the bare ground that was Astroworld I can't help thinking how such a small patch of land in the middle of Houston could feel so vast, so infinte, and so far from home as it did to me back in 1970.
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