What Would I Experience if I Were To Go To Studio 54 During The Disco Craze?

From about age 5 to age 9 (this was from 1976 to 1980),

I missed disco, and its correlated discotheques. This was because I was

too young to go to such disco clubs at that time.


So I had to imagine being in the heart of this craze. After

researching on the hottest disco nightclub in the United States,

Studio 54, I was imagining myself waiting in line to get into the

club. Learned that the owner (who was also the doorman at that time)

made up his own rules on who can get in…and who cannot. I think that

the doorman will at first say that I will not be allowed in because of

my African-American race, but my very curly hair—although I was not in

a full-fledged Afro hairdo—would make the owner reconsider his

rejection, and I would be let in.


What would I see? A sea of colored moving lights, and a sea of colors

in the club patrons wearing platform shoes, three-piece suits, and

a lot of casual garb. Learning from what Steve Dahl mentioned when

he hated disco, I would also have seen ladies don plenty and plenty

of jewelry—the garb that Steve Dahl did not like in the disco craze.

I would have mind the jewelry. I was not into the drugs they had in

the place so I would stay away from that…I would instead focus on

hitting on the right woman or women to dance with, and eventually I

would imagine finding a lady to dance to that is almost like Karen

Lynn Gorney in the movie “Saturday Night Fever”, even if the real

Karen was not there.  I would see a very loose but controlled chaos of

dancers either dancing the line hustle, or doing freestyle disco

dancing (letting it all out), or of course, do one of the popular

partner disco dances at that time

made famous by the band Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony…yes, the

hustle.

Six Flags Great America Memories---The Rides I Have Ridden On in the 1980s

I was in Great America several times in the 1980s, so as I try to remember the times I rode the rides, I can think of memories of some of them….

WHITEWATER RAMPAGE

Well, it is supposed to be the water ride at that theme park that would bring us more thrills than the already-installed Log Flume that I rode before in Six Flags. It was announced on TV that a ride called the Whitewater Rampage was going to be on, and even with a slight fear of water, I decided to take on the Rampage. After I got through a rather long line, I see a warning message that said “You are going to get wet…probably soaked…after riding this ride.” I knew I was going to get wet, but I don’t know at that point how much. I was sitting with about 6-7 people in a sort of saucer module with an outer skin of yellow and seats with seat beat restraints in black. The ride is innocent enough in the begging with the gentle whitewater bumps, but then, the saucer picks up speed gradually in the middle of the ride. I got lashed in the back at least once with a bit of water. Then, the surprise comes after I got through halfway through the ride, after going through a rather long tunne….exploding geysers fire in the air up to 40 feet high, and I was about 25 feet away from it when it fired. They released about ½ to ¾ gallons of water and when they dropped all of that water on me, I got a partial brunt—ending up being wet with about 1/3 gallons of water. Then the grand finale of the ride was the climax, the module goes down into more whitewater bumps that were larger and bigger, and I got lashed 2 more times with water, and on the last bump, I think I got a direct hit from behind by the water….and then, it was all over. I had an extra set of clothes to change after I got off the ride. THE

LOG FLUME 
The ride seems to be in 4 phases. I had been on the Flume twice, so I can remember:

Phase 1
You go across the first sinuous curve and you are taken up with the first ascent of about 75 feet, feeling a shaky wooden-like feel even though this is not a wooden rollercoaster. Must be steel cables doing the work.

Phase 2
Then, I feel the light drop and then it is a sinuous ride with left banks, right banks, and then left banks again, and then, a slight drop of 15 feet gets you a bit wet (a prelude to the grand finale of the ride), and then, you end up in a new straightaway.

Phase 3
Another slight drop of about 10 feet gets you down and gets you slightly more wet again, and then a few more short straightaways and a few more banks. At that point, I feel like a log but I know that there is another final big climb to come.

Phase 4 – The Grand Finale
This challenged me a little bit—because I was a bit afraid of heights but I was able to deal with it---the final ascent, the second of the ascents, as big as the first, gets you as high as about 85 feet, then you go straight for about 15 more feet. Then I see what is coming below—the big drop with the great pool of water below to splash me at, and then I braced myself for the drop that would happen at speeds as high as 50 mph, I placed my head down forward as the drop happened, punctuated by a mule bump in the middle (about 40 feet), and then, I can hear the great splash, and I got sideswiped with a splash of water. Then I raised my head and I found out that part of my legs and my back of the shirt got wet, but I knew that the ride was over.