Chez Chesler

This past weekend I took my kids to the Woburn Boys and Girls Club's annual visit of the Dean and Flynn Fiesta Shows carnival. Last year I watched kids and cheerleaders riding the bungee thing. I don't know the name of this ride. It costs $6, no tickets, no all-day passes. Four people at once are strapped into seat harnesses, one on each side of a square apparatus, and connected at both their hips to bungee cords, which are then tightened to that their rest point is a few feet above a crash pad. Once the rider gets bouncing, like on a trampoline, a good push off the crash pad brings him high enough that he falls through the rest point close enough to the crash pad that he can push off again. Most first-timers need to be pulled down by the attendant to get started: they don't jump hard enough as they're being raised into place. Some kids can do flips, one little girl was consistently getting a double back flip with each bounce. My older son was going to try it, but he changed his mind, and I took his place. I didn't have croakies so I took off my glasses. I still love heights, but without my glasses I didn't get much advantage from that. The last time I fell that far was off the 10-meter platform at Christopher Morley Park, in my teens. I don't like free-fall as much. I now get butterflies in my stomach on a big playground swing. I haven't been on a rollercoaster lately. And I'd eaten the wrong dinner too soon before. Worst part is none of my trampoline skills were usable. I think the attendant didn't want to get too friendly, or the harness was too small, but I was being supported by my inner thighs rather than my groins. I couldn't do a flip, or even start one, and I couldn't walk straight for a couple of days. I'm feeling very old.