For a Utah native, no summer is complete without a visit to Lagoon, our local amusement park. Located a few miles north of Salt Lake City, Lagoon is an ancient part of Utah history; it got its start on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in 1886 before moving to its present, inland location ten years later, in 1896. Much of the original park still remains today, although it’s been added onto and upgraded over the years, so the old and quaint attractions mingle side-by-side with the latest in high-tech, computer-controlled thrill rides. I like plenty of the modern rides just fine, but I’m sure my Loyal Readers won’t be at all surprised to learn that my favorite parts of Lagoon are the oldest ones… and my very favorite ride of all is the 1921 roller coaster that has no official name. Locals just call it the White Roller Coaster, due to the coating of white paint that was originally used to preserve the wooden structure. (Lagoon management recently made what I consider a boneheaded decision to stop painting the WRC, so with weathering and the occasional replacement of aging timbers, it’s gradually turning a rather unremarkable shade of grayish-brown. Supposedly, this is to make it easier for the inspection crews to see problems in the elderly structure, but I’m willing to bet it was a cost-benefit thing; somebody figured out they could save a few bucks if they stopped painting it every spring.)

The old roller coaster isn’t sexy, and it certainly isn’t a gentle lover. Compared to the smooth ride of the modern steel coasters that surround it, the WRC is actually something of a bare-knuckled bastard. Every turn, every warped board, every connecting bolt translates as a rattle, a thump, or a jolt. The whole structure seems to shift and flex underneath you as your car passes over it. It makes many people nervous. For me, though, that’s just part of the fun. The coaster feels like an organic, living thing that never delivers quite the same ride twice. Some of my earliest Lagoon memories are of riding it.

Unfortunately, The Girlfriend and I haven’t been able to enjoy the white coaster together in a very long time. To be perfectly frank, we’d both grown too fat in recent years to comfortably sit in the narrow, old-fashioned cars. The last time we rode together several years ago, Anne was forced to sit with her hips turned sort of sideways — uncomfortable to start with, downright painful once the pounding began. After a very unpleasant run that left her bruised and humiliated, she declared she was done with the WRC, and I accepted this without argument. I’ve since ridden it alone a few times, feeling sad and guilty that she couldn’t be with me, and also pretty cramped myself in those unforgiving seats that were designed for kids and people from, ahem, a time when foodstuffs were less plentiful. Last year, I didn’t go on my favorite roller coaster at all. It didn’t seem worth the trouble anymore. It was just one more thing I’d resigned myself to having to give up now that I was a middle-aged man, one more childish pleasure that I no longer had room for in my grown-up present. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t really believe it, and I felt like shit about it. But the situation was what it was…

I’m incredibly happy to report that the situation is different this year. Like I said a few weeks back when I first wrote about that 5K that Anne participated in, she and I have both made a lot of changes since the start of 2012. I’ve lost in the neighborhood of 40 pounds (I haven’t been keeping close track, so I don’t know an exact figure, but I know it’s somewhere around there — possibly even a little higher) and Anne, who’s taken the extra step of hiring a trainer and has been working so very hard, has dropped 60 and is still losing. We’re feeling a lot better about ourselves, both physically and emotionally, and there’s no question that we’re smaller people than we used to be. And today, during our annual outing to Lagoon with her family, we proved it — and earned ourselves a major sense of triumph — when we successfully rode that rickety old wooden roller coaster again, together, sitting in the very front seats. I was perfectly at ease, right in the middle of the seat with room to spare on either side, and Anne, while still feeling pretty cozy, was not at all compressed, crowded, mashed, or packed in. We just got on, closed the lap bars, and had a fun ride, same as anybody else. Although the day was a bit frustrating in several respects, that one moment made everything else worthwhile. It made all of the struggles we’ve both endured — but especially Anne, because quite honestly she’s worked harder at it than I’ve had to — over the last eight months worthwhile. The joy in her face as she sat down, her exuberant “I did it!” at the end of the ride… well, just think of the end of the original Star Wars, the scene in the hanger on Yavin IV after Luke has obliterated the Death Star and everyone is hugging and slapping each other on the back, and you might have some notion of how that moment felt for us.

I’m so very proud of her — of both of us, but especially of her. And I’ve got my White (soon-to-be brown) Roller Coaster back!