The Luna Park Gazette

Now I know what “hell on wheels” really means. I took a ride on the world famous Cyclone roller coaster today and having survived this experience I can you two things: this was my first time on this attraction. And it was probably my last. I was part of a select group of just four people who had been given a special ride on the Cyclone and while I was quite honored by this star treatment, I am really happy to be alive. If there is a record for screaming the phrase “Oh my God” repeatedly in under two minutes, I smashed it to pieces. Now, you may be wondering why a man who is afraid great heights and excessive speeds would willingly climb aboard a roller coaster knowing full well that he would have to deal with, well, great heights and excessive speeds. I had been contacted by Ariel Kaminer, a New York Times columnist who is doing a story about the Cyclone. She had come across some of my blog postings where I wrote about visiting my father at a Coney Island nursing home a f...

I was sitting on the R train Sunday morning when the screaming started. We were at the 45th Street station in Sunset Park. I was going to a gym class in Manhattan and I had left my house ridiculously early so I wouldn’t be late. I was overdoing it, but it's always a good idea to give yourself a little extra time when you're traveling at off-peak hours. There are fewer trains on the weekends, so if you miss one, you’d better have something to read. Perhaps that thought was on the mind of a young woman who was racing down the steps to get onto the train. The doors were closing just as she got to them and she tripped—perhaps the platform was slippery from all the goddamn rain we were having. Whatever the reason, she managed to somehow slide her leg into the space between the train and the platform, which I didn’t think was possible at this particular station. It was the kind of freak occurrence that you couldn’t do if you tried a hundred times. But there it was. “Stop the train!” ...

This is the kind of day where you want to pull the covers up over your soul. It’s raining like hell here, the wind is blowing and you feel really sorry for anybody who has to be outside right now. I went out twice today and both times and I got soaked to the skin and bone. Enough, already; whatever I don’t have now I’ll do without. The rain does have its good points. Like a snowstorm it forces you to slow down and look at yourself. And you can take care of those little things you've been meaning to do. I’m into my fifth day of no diet soda. That may not sound terribly impressive, but anyone who knows me will probably go into shock upon hearing this. My family has pleaded with me for decades to cut out Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. Every New Year’s Eve since the Carter Administration I’ve resolved to stop drinking the stuff and every year that was the first resolution to hit the deck. In fact over the years, it only got worse until I was drinking three cans during the day and coming hom...

At least my veins look good. I had planned on going to the gym on Sunday morning, but I ended up in the emergency room at Lutheran Medical Center instead. I had been feeling this discomfort around my chest for about three days and when it refused to go away, I finally went to the hospital. It started Thursday night right after supper. I had been feeling pretty good; I had come through a tough week without blowing my stack, at least not too much, anyway. And then I started feeling lightheaded, my stomach gurgled like a cauldron, and my chest felt a little...weird. I sat down and said "what the hell is this?" I actually considered called 911. I got dressed, got out my insurance card and sat in my living room with the phone in my hand. I’m not a young man anymore, of course, but I’m also a bit of hypochondriac. I pictured an ambulance and a fire engine pulling up in front of my house in the dead of night with the lights going. I saw myself being carried out on a stretcher in fro...