Episodes
Saturday Aug 24, 2013
Water Park Time Machine
Saturday Aug 24, 2013
Saturday Aug 24, 2013
I recently went back in time to the 1980s, not literally of course, but it sure did feel like it.
It all started the previous week when some friends and I went back in time to the 1880’s, attending the annual Kutztown Folk Festival (Kutztown, PA), a gala that celebrates, among other things: quilting, glass-blowing, candle-making and shoo-fly pie baking.
On our way there we passed a water park that looked straight out of a Meatballs movie (which could have also looked straight out of a Friday The 13th movie, minus the daylight).
(above: Terry Hill Pool, circa 1980 & 2013)
When we met up with some friends, originally from the area, they told us they used to visit the park as youngsters. Our friend Katie said that part of the park’s excitement was its danger. I guess barreling down a cobbled-together waterslide—not knowing if you’d make it to the bottom—has the same thrill of jumping off a bridge with a bungee attached to your ankle.
While my friend Ian and I gave each other we-gotta-go looks, Katie interrupted by telling us that the park was closed. Though it looked like it hadn’t been touched since 1983, I swore I saw some people there when we passed it. A quick search on Ian’s iPhone confirmed my hunch: Terry Hill Water Park was still in business!
We planned on going the following day, but a thunderstorm foiled our attempt.
After obsessing for a week, we decided to give Terry Hill another try. Adjacent to a trailer park and tucked away in Pennsylvania Dutch farmland, we had arrived!
There was a sign out front informing patrons that if attendance dropped to under 25 people, the park would close. Fortunately, there was a bus-full of summer camp kids splashing around the pool, and a quick headcount confirmed that there were more than 25 of them.
As soon as I walked through Terry Hill’s pool house I was taken back to my childhood. There were no flat screen TVs, self-flushing urinals, or a gift shop selling overpriced trinkets and drink cups. Coincidentally the park’s radio was set to a station playing jams from, you got it, the ‘80s. Hearing Modern English’s “I Melt With You,” felt perfectly appropriate.
Katie’s “dangerously fun” sales pitch was confirmed when I read one of the multiple signs warning of “nicks, bruises or cuts” when using water attractions. My first ride of the day was “Rocky The Flying Squirrel,” one that was advertised on the park’s website as “new for 2013.” The slide looked like it had been around for a decade or two (as did the website).
(above: Well, it's not like I wasn't warned.)
Incredulously asking an employee if it was indeed brand new, she answered, “Well, it’s new this year, because it wasn’t opened last year.” I later found out that the “new attraction” was actually 19 years old.
Because the park’s slides look more apt for transporting logs than giggling children, a foam mat is required for the descent. Halfway down the ride my mat bundled up under me, as my backside took the brunt of the punishment. Every bump came with an involuntary cuss word, and after violently being tossed into the pool below—and almost ramming into a wooden staircase inside the pool—I began laughing hysterically.
How was this even legal?
Just as the warning sign prophesized, I looked down at my left forearm and noticed both a nick and a cut, although the cut looked more like a small gash.
(above: Like I said, it wasn't like I wasn't warned.)
On another slide—this one made from a material that felt like concrete—my cursing barrage continued, as I seriously thought I was going to be tossed over the edge, into a patch of unkempt shrubbery. Once again, my mat came loose, as I slid the rest of the way down on my bareback. I was a live action Looney Tunes cartoon as I laughed hysterically once more.
Later in the afternoon, Ian and I ascended an asphalt hill towards a slide that was either inspired by the colors of a traffic light or the Rastafarian flag. When we reached the top we were told by a young lady patrolling the slide that we had to go all the way back down to the bottom to retrieve a mat. When we returned—yes, another barefoot trip up an asphalt hill in the summer sun—the young lady rested a hand on her hip, now showing off her youthful curves…in a bikini. Smirking like Jim Halpert in an episode of The Office, I whispered to Ian, “She had a shirt on a few minutes ago, right?”
“Yep,” Ian replied.
Forget about looking like a Meatballs movie, we were in a Meatballs movie.
Moments later a young guy employee ripped off his shirt when Ian and I took multiple trips on a line-less slide. In the pool below, I had to ask, “Am I crazy or did he take off his shirt, too?” Ian nodded.
(clockwise from top left: The mats, the traffic light and/or Rasta-inspired slide, the pool & the refreshments.)
Besides recalling bad late night 1980’s B-movies on the USA Network, Terry Hill felt ions away from a culture that embraces tricycle helmets and padded playgrounds. Not only was the park’s outdoor carpets lined with metal separators held down by protruding screws (not unlike your grandmother’s front porch), but the only safety precaution for a Tarzan rope—a device that tossed and plunked patrons into the deep end of the pool—was an angled piece of plywood covered with prickly lawn-turf. I guess the rationale is that a rug-burned back is better than a broken one?
(clockwise from top left: Ian on the Tarzan rope, swinging far away from the lawn-turfed plywood; once you're spat out of "Rocky The Flying Squirrel," beware of the nearby, in-pool wooden staircase; the shrubbery I swore I was going to land in & metal separators: just like grandma used to have on her front porch!)
Upon leaving Terry Hill we ran into its owner. Turns out he was a former swim coach who transformed the pool complex into a water park back in 1980. One slide turned into two, and eventually Terry Hill was the talk of the town. The park added a few more slides and even includes a complimentary miniature golf course.
(clockwise from top left: Ouch, the ascent up the long asphalt hill; this bench was definitely around in the '80s; as was this nachos sign & the barn actually takes it back to the '60s.)
Katie was right; Terry Hill was closed for a while before being resurrected by its original owner. He couldn’t sit back and watch the park he created deteriorate into nothing, so he bought it back and is attempting to fix it up bit by bit.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t renovate too much, otherwise I’ll have to find a Dolorean or a hot tub next time I want to travel back in time to the dangerously thrilling and charmingly simple 1980s. (I say this as I pour a bottle of peroxide over both of my forearms.)
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