Back to the Island

My sister and I were rumbling our way out to Coney Island on the N train Friday night when this shocked look came over her face.

“You’re not wearing the shirt,” she said.

I was confused for a few seconds, but then I realized what she was talking about. And that I had seriously messed up.

I had forgotten to wear the striped green shirt that I had worn for five pre-COVID years in a row, when we took our annual spin on the Spook-a-Rama, a classic funhouse ride that opened in 1955 during the Eisenhower Administration.

I was crushed. I couldn’t believe I had made such a thoughtless blunder.

I looked down at the black t-shirt I had gotten years ago while volunteering for a film festival at the Brooklyn Museum.

It’s a nice shirt, but it's the shirt.

For those of you in the dark about this, well, that’s a large part of Spook-a-Rama.

Riders (victims?) are roughly pulled around a dark room in a small car while a variety of ghouls and monsters leap at them and vile screams and rabid cackling fill the air.

The wearing of the green shirt is a fluke that became a tradition—which I suspect is the story behind a lot of traditions.

Several years ago, we decided to take a ride on the Spook-a-Rama, which we hadn’t done since we were kids.

It’s a lot of fun and it’s about the only ride that my sister and I can tolerate, since the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel and that rolling nightmare called the Thunderbolt seem a hell of a lot closer to torture than amusement.

Wearing of the Green

During the ride, a camera snapped a picture of us screaming and I happened to be wearing a striped green shirt that once belonged to my late uncle.

We went back to Coney Island the following year, took another on the Spook-a-Rama, and got our pictures taken once again.

When I got home I compared the two photos and saw that I was wearing the green stripped shirt in both of them.

It wasn’t planned, it was just a coincidence, but I vowed that every time my sister and I rode on the Spook-a-Rama, I would be wearing that green shirt.

I kept that promise for 5 years in a row. Last year, the pandemic replaced fake terror with the real thing, so the chain was broken, but we made a date to go this year when the park reopened and I dug out the green shirt.

We had to cancel the first attempt a few weeks ago on account of rain, but I figured I’d keep the green shirt handy and wear it when we made our second attempt.

Only I didn’t.

I don’t know what happened, why I had allowed myself to forget this simple but fun tradition.

And there was nothing we could do. I wasn’t about to race back to Bay Ridge for a costume change.

I was getting so worked up that I was actually close to tears—until it occurred to me that I was completely overreacting.

When we got to Coney Island, we strolled around the boardwalk for a while and then headed over to the Spook-a-Rama.

There is nothing like those first few moments when the ride starts up and your car starts barreling toward the front doors.

The anticipation, the feeling of joyful helplessness, and, yes, that little bit of fear, kick in before you even see your first freak.

We screamed, laughed, and had our usual fabulous time.

I’m told that the ride only lasts 45 seconds, something I find hard to believe, but at one time Spook-a-Rama lasted more than 10 minutes, with five minutes outdoors, making it the longest spook ride in the world.

When we got back to the real world, we got our photos and then took in the fantastic fireworks display.

I looked at the new photo and I thought from now on I'll wear the black t-shirt every time we ride the Spook-a-Rama.

It’s time for a new tradition.