Supersonic Winks

You can not maintain a rivalry while engaged on a Kennywood ride in full operation. Just swap glances with another rider, even for a tick, and it's all woots and fist pumps. Regardless of how dissimilar the personalities, a singular fleeting but genuine recognition between two thrill seekers being whipped and whirled in an unnatural and slightly foolhardy way perpetually elicits a mutual "all fuckin' right, buddy!" For that flash, the two riders are bonded in boundless excitement. And typically, the faster the ride, the more animated and jubilant the exchange.

I once saw a wisenheimer and a miser, natural enemies of the most vicious order, share a charming moment when the one passed the other on The Racers at Kennywood. Each was positioned at the helm of his coaster when the hyper wisenheimer's blue coaster nudged ahead of the wizened miser's red one, and stares met. The purple-haired punk in the Guitar Hero hoodie flashed a knuckle deep picky-nose taunt across the canyon between the tracks to the flanneled, mesh-hatted pappy in the challenging coaster, who countered with the miser's patented finishing move, the "Fist Shake to the Gods." But both combatants were soon ravaged by hysterics. For the abridged time being, they were joyously melded in their subsonic crapulence.
However, any chance meeting between the miser and the wisenheimer outside the bounds of the Racer ride could easily require the slightest misstep to erupt into ugliness. Who couldn't imagine the following?: The hood-rat accidentally bumping the crank in line at the Dippin' Dots vendor, and the crank retaliating with a facial swipe of his wooden cane followed by a brutal Dr Scholl's orthopedic walker to the back of the skull, and puncuated by a hearty "harumph, harumph!"

Globals conflicts may be settled if those involved would resort to discussing their issues while strapped-in at Kennywood. Seat members of the governing Israeli body and the leaders of Hamas in the same buggy at the Exterminator, pull the ignition handle and let those fellas talk-out their differences. You bet that by time the buggy slows to a complete stop, lilacs will begin to blossom in the Gaza Strip. In fact, World War II might have been avoided if Hitler would not have been too short to ride The Turtle on his fifth grade field trip. Bin Laden? He made the journey from Sudan ten years ago to experience The Old Mill, but learned that Garfield's Nightmare would soon be in operation.

He left pretty pissed!