My Knott's Bloggy Farm

As I've mentioned in the past I'm a youth pastor, or at least I was- until August 1st at which time I relinquished my title as Supreme Commander of the Youth Group and returned to civilian life. But while the title yet remained, it was incumbent upon me to do various things with my teenagers, not the least of which was taking them on our yearly trek to Knott's Berry Farm, this being one of our final activities with the teens.

Now I'm more of a Disneyland man (not sure if those words are often said together) myself, but in the interest of equal time I do attend other amusement parks. Such was the case on this beautiful summer day. We loaded up the bus with thirteen teens and two leaders and went to the old berry farm once owned by the Knott's family.

I've got several rules I implement when taking my teens to an amusement park. Some youth guys force their kids to stay with them the whole day. I do not. I feel that if they don't want to be around me then I don't want to be around them. I let them go off in groups of no less than four. If they get stuck with a kid they don't necessarily want to hang out with all day then they cannot ditch them. By the same token the loner kids cannot allow themselves to be ditched. Both instances will find all parties involved facing the wrath and judgment of their youth pastor, who can be pretty mean when he needs to be, or so I'm told-I generally blackout for brief periods of time after someone upsets me. When I awake I find my shirt missing, my pants ripped and turned purple and the faintest hue of green ebbing from the surface of my skin). I also do not tolerate tardiness. If you force me to wait more than 5 minutes, I will force you to walk the whole way home (which is a real bummer when we go to college days in OKC).

Once I send my kids off to go play (inevitably some will stick around because I am that awesome) I turn my attention to the flotsam and jetsam of theme park attendees.

This day did not disappoint.

One of the attractions common with all parks (whether they be theme, amusement or carnival style) is the opportunity to try your hand at some random game in the attempt to win a small, medium or large plush toy. Firstly, their games were pretty dumb. You could try your hand at a basketball game where you attempted a three point contest with extremely over inflated balls and a rim that was half the size of a standard rim (although I must confess it is hilarious to watch some punk who thinks he's better than Kobe make fewer shots than a little girl who uses every ounce of strength just to get it close). If that doesn't do it for you, you can try to kick a soccer ball into a small net that is being guarded by a comical (if not somewhat stereotypical and racially insensitive) cardboard cutout of a Mexican goalie that is bigger than the goal! As terrible as the games are, they are surpassed by the prizes you could win. Most of the plush toys were versions of various South Park characters. I don't really see this appealing to anyone but stoners and very immature guys who think that sort of thing is funny enough to watch more than 30 seconds. As you may have guessed I'm not a fan of the show nor do I think anybody should watch it. But I certainly think it's inappropriate to serve as a prize that your kids will want you to win for them. If you play some of the more expensive and thus more challenging games, you could win an electric guitar. Really?! As if it wasn't difficult enough to lug around a giant stuffed animal, now a kid has got to potentially carry around a musical instrument like he's waiting for a music producer to spring from the bushes and offer him a recording contract if he can play a song for him in the next 30 seconds.

The park workers also seemed to enjoy their jobs significantly less than their Disneyland counterparts. They walk around like zombies crashing after a red bull high and if they happen to engage you in conversation it is the weirdest thing you'll hear all day.

Allow me to illustrate. I went on Boomerang with one of my seniors and while standing in line, a rather portly park worker approached us and stepped inside his little area with a small control box. Once safely inside his outlined square of caution, he proceeded to lift a chain across the opening and latch it. It struck me as funny, being a large man myself, that this tiny wisp of a chain (that somewhat resembled the chain of a pocket watch) would securely hold him in place should he lose his balance and tumble towards the opening of his box o' safety. So I said, "There, now don't you feel safe?” Now there are two types of fat people: the ones who are jovial and love to laugh as much as they love deep fried everything (see my previous post for more on that) and there are the ones who live in their mom's basement. They usually exhibit a lack of social skills and/or anti social behavior and carry with them an in-depth and intimate knowledge of role playing games and World of Warcraft. My friend the park employee was the latter which was obvious when he replied thusly, "It's a safety measure, sir." Really, I didn't realize that, I thought it was a barrier to keep out the tens of people who want your job!

I happened to be wearing a Batman shirt and this sparked his interest greatly. He asked me (in more of a statement) if I was a DC comics fan, being sure to add that he preferred Marvel. I am a fan of Batman and Superman (my personal favorite is the Green Lantern) but I don't choose sides. So I said, "I don't get caught up in the whole east coast/west coast thing" (A reference that sailed over his head by three or four feet). Undaunted by my reference to pop culture, he then said, "Okay, then, who do you think would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?"

I was taken aback at first as I stared unblinking trying to figure out if he really just asked me that. I was looking for the worm hole to Jr. High and the Van Damme vs. Seagal debate. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that I answered him or if my answer made a compelling argument. I said, "Batman! Superman may be supernaturally strong but he has a weakness that makes him mortal and when he's like that, he's kind of a wuss! Whereas, Batman has proven that he can endure getting the crap beat out of him and still rise victorious." He didn't say much, just, "I've never thought of that." He then told us to keep our hands inside the car and enjoy the rest of our day at Knott's. As the coaster left the platform he had a look on his face as though his entire world paradigm had been altered. When we returned to the platform he was nowhere to be seen and his replacement said he muttered something about the foundations of his life being shaken and needing some deep fried butter. He's probably in his basement abode on his inflatable couch curled up in the fetal position desperately clutching his superhero dolls-err-action figures to his chest.

At lunch, I returned to the park entrance to meet with my teens. While waiting for the waifs to arrive I noticed a commotion at the turnstile. A security guard was standing there with arms folded looking down disapprovingly as a Brazilian man argued his case. One of the rules is that no outside food is allowed in the park. This man tried to circumnavigate this rule by hiding a bag of Doritos and a tray of Chips Ahoy cookies in a Brazilian team soccer jacket. While I feel that the greater offense was desecrating the snack foods by concealing them in soccer paraphernalia, the park takes a dim view of rule breakers. It seems that when the ticket checker discovered the food she accidentally dropped his jacket on the ground. He decided that this was the most egregious error of all and attempted to deflect attention from his crime by asking to see as many park officials as he could to whom he could plead his case. One by one they came all the way up the chain of command and as they did he demonstrated what happened to each one of them. He would tell them how angry he was that the bag checker dropped his jacket on the ground and then he would act it out. He must have rubbed that jacket on the ground no less than 10 times in demonstration. His chief complaint was that they soiled the collar and that it would need to be dry-cleaned. He demanded that Knott’s pay for it. From my vantage point I could clearly see the stain on his collar and I am convinced it was nothing more than sweat. The park attendants held their ground on the jacket and eventually gave in on the snack food allowing him to keep it as long as he didn't eat it and find a respectable sports jacket in which to hide them. I was a little disappointed that they acquiesced so easily but perhaps when dealing with someone as unstable as a soccer fan one must be as cautious as possible.

There is so much more I could bore you with but not much of it compares to the plump park person or the furious food hiding foreigner. So I leave you with that and set out on my next blog. Tonight I go to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conduct an orchestra playing music from the movies he's scored. Maybe this one won't take me two months....but I wouldn't hold your breath!