Riding The Wave At Geauga Lake (memoir)

Geauga Lake closed in 2007 but I had gone there when I was still quite little, like, in the 80’s little, and had gotten to be the first batch of humans that got to experience their new amusement park feature, called ‘The Wave’.

Aptly named, it was basically a humongous pool and every 15 minutes or so an automated, machine generated wave would convalesce its way through the pool.  But there was sure to be one.  The Big One.  That WAVE that would knock you on your ass and if you didn’t want to get caught in that particular wave, you needed to get your ass outta of the pool stat.  I’m vaguely remembering the aura of fear, alarms even.  Terrified over-weight moms in neon tutu swim dresses, with fully made-up faces struggling to climb up out of the pool in time.  Just in the nick of time to get out of that wave’s way.   

But there I was.

In the shallow end of the pool. 

Of ‘The Wave’ and I remember that like the instant was more real than this current present moment, it was before sex, sin, boys, college.  I was in a one piece bathing suit with white and purple stripes, and to this day, it has always been my most favorite swimsuit.  I didn’t even know what the term girl encompassed yet.  I, was—as my teacher’s complained to my father in grade school about it—a tomboy.  A waste of pink.  Shucks.  And no Lego’s for you either.

Chlorine immersed, barely fitting in the hole that was actually too big for me, of the center of my school bus yellow inner tube, feeling sunshine.  No fear.   I was a fantastic wave jumper, had enough practice at Lake Erie, I could jump 15 foot waves, no problem.  The alarms went unquestioned, unheeded.

Then the wave came.  ‘The Wave’.     

The tubes parted, the delighted yells really had seemed to morph into terrified shrills and shrieks.  It was bigger and quicker than you thought.  It wasn’t Lake Erie, it was an eerie pool.  And I had water in my mouth and nose, it was dragging me into itself, tearing me away from the inner tube and my friends.  Sucking me down, then, tossing me up, completely out of the water and up towards the sky.  I ended up landing face first on my right temple in less than a foot and a half of water.  That blue speckled concrete shit on the bottom of most public pools, met my face.  It was cold, hard, darkness.  Then I remember, less intensely, about a small crowd since apparently everyone there had watched me fly up and out of the pool, probably wondering how I didn’t break my neck, my father checking my limbs for breaks and bruises.    

I began crying because everyone was watching me but not helping me.  And feeling helpless, endeavoring through the tears to articulate to the man who held custody and keep of me, where it actually hurt.  “No Daddy, it hurts here.  Right here!”  Hysterical that he can’t figure out what part of me actually hurt.  I started to tantrum a bit pointing to my face.  Every time I said “here”, he was hearing “ear” and was looking at my left ear instead of my right temple.  My dad kept saying that there was nothing wrong with my ear and when I became desperate to just be, merely understood, I stomped and screamed, “Not EAR!  HERE, it hurts right here!”  Pointing repeatedly to my head trauma. 

My father slapped me in the face and told me to calm down.

Again, just the crowd, watching.  Doing nothing.  His girlfriend, doing nothing.

I sobbed in defeat, I hung my head and stared at my feet.

Then he finally saw what I was trying to show him.  That I wasn’t alright.  I wasn’t okay.  Just maybe, he shouldn’t of slapped me and instead just listened to me?  I don’t know what he thought.  But he saw the quickly swelling multicolored bruise that was protruding, growing along my brow bone.  Causing me agony that I remember more clearly then standing wet on the wooden deck.  Wondering why my father had slapped me?

Riding in the back of the ambulance golf cart to their onsite medic.  An icepack covering half of my face.  Staring backwards at the people staring backwards at me.  Getting to the hole of a clinic.  Stacks of paperwork.  Apparently ‘The Wave’ almost kills a lot of people.  I was examined, iced and administered baby aspirin. 

I never even so much wadded in The Wave if I ever ended up at Geauga Lake after that happened.