Roller Coaster

There's a new space-age roller coaster that turns the world upside down for riders at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township N.J. and it's as exciting as a parachute jump. That was my impression anyway, as one of the lucky first to try the thrill ride Shockwave when it made its debut this season. Great Adventure, which has a penchant for providing the ultimate in roller- coaster kicks, has outdone itself. The ride aboard this electric-blue shocker is a two-minute, 55-mile-per- hour chase across nearly a half-mile of open sky, the kicker being that there are no seats aboard Shockwave: Riders go from start to finish on their own two feet.

America is having a roller-coaster renaissance, with amusement parks all over the country spending millions of dollars on rides designed to attract more screamers than ever before. Two of the new thrill titans are competing for the title of world's tallest and fastest roller coaster. The contenders - both of which opened to the public this spring - are the Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J., and the Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.

To some, the abandoned wooden roller coaster on the edge of Lakemont Park is a crumbling remnant of pre-World War I Americana, standing mostly because no one could afford to knock it down. To others, the Leap the Dips is a turn-of-the-century treasure - the world's oldest roller coaster, the holy grail of greased rails, a shrine that draws pilgrims from as far away as France, Belgium and Turkey to this weathered railroad town about 80 miles east of Pittsburgh. Last summer, five dozen English roller-coaster enthusiasts crossed the Atlantic to gaze upon its failing tracks and frayed cupola.

Kingda Ka, the world's tallest, fastest roller coaster, could be running again by the end of the month, a spokeswoman for Six Flags Great Adventure said. "Things are going very well," said Kristin Siebeneicher, public-relations manager for the Jackson Township, N.J., park. "Our maintenance team is working hand in hand with the ride manufacturer and the State of New Jersey to complete the launch track area. " The roller coaster, which opened May 19, has been shut down since it malfunctioned during a routine test June 8. A liner in the trough of the launch track became dislodged and damaged other parts.

A 19-year-old Chester woman was killed yesterday afternoon when she plummeted from the Lightnin' Loops roller coaster at the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson Township, N.J., police said. Karen Anne Marie Brown, of the 300 block of Rural Road, was killed when she fell from the roller coaster about 3:45 p.m., said a spokeswoman for the Freehold Area Hospital in Monmouth County. Brown was riding on the roller coaster with her boyfriend, Richard De Prince, 20, of Chester, De Prince's father said last night.

Think of the most exciting thing you've ever done. Your pulse quickens. Your heart palpitates. A tingling heat spreads across the back of your neck. And there's an intangible feeling in your gut - like you're on the edge of something, teetering between supreme delight and extreme danger. Now, climb into a roller coaster car. Strap on the lap harness, giggle nervously and lean back into the seat. The car lurches forward with a jerk and starts climbing into the sky. The chain-drive clink-clink-clinks, inexorably dragging the coaster's passengers to the top. Clink-clink-clink.

In 1958, Samuel H. High 3d was a grownup who had never ridden a roller coaster, which in and of itself didn't make him all that unusual. But Samuel H. High 3d had roller coasters in his blood and didn't know it. His father, Samuel H. High Jr., was the majority stock owner in Philadelphia Toboggan Co., which built, among other machines of ornate exterior and simple pleasure, roller coasters. His grandfather, Samuel H. High, was the lawyer who helped found the company in 1904.

First there was the jolt, recalled Genevieve White, a passenger aboard the wrecked Amtrak Colonial. "It was the most frightening thing that could possibly happen," the Mount Airy woman said last night. "It was like being on a roller coaster going sideways. I said, 'Oh, my God, we're going in the river.' I was positive I was going to a fiery grave in the water. " The crash was equally scary from outside the confines of the 12-car train. Michele Exter, who was hanging laundry in her back yard when disaster struck about 40 yards away, remembers "a sound like the crunch of metal.

I've decided that my definition of middle age is when the losses in your life are at least as plentiful as the gains. There are times when life is undilutedly intense, just as when you measure out three scoops of coffee but add only enough water for two. I'm in one of those periods now. No wonder I need an afternoon nap, fall asleep on the couch at 9 at night. I'm sure my heart has bags under its eyes. It's from too much life, and too much death, and too many other life passages happening at once.

At last count, St. Joseph's junior forward Greg Mullee had visited Disney World at least 100 times. His father has been director of purchasing for that giant Orlando, Fla., amusement park since 1970. "I went there so many times when I was younger, it got a little boring after a while," Mullee said. "It's really neat, though. We get special privileges. We get in the park for free. That's the main thing. " Mullee's favorite ride is Space Mountain. He has been on the same type of roller coaster since his college career began.

WILKES-BARRE - At one time, several amusement parks were within a short drive for Wyoming Valley residents. Now, it takes at least an hour to reach a roller coaster, and the local parks are just memories. Local enthusiasts and historians are working to make sure those memories - of days spent at Angela Park in southern Luzerne County, Hanson's Amusement Park in Harveys Lake, and others - are preserved. Jim Fichter has mint-condition Angela Park memorabilia that he sells to those looking to hold on to a piece of history.

This isn't easy to write, but it must be written: Philadelphia's comedy sweethearts, Jennifer Childs and Tony Braithwaite, with their newest cabaret for 1812 Productions, Let's Pretend We're Famous , may have jumped the shark once and for all. If you have a firsthand recollection of that last reference, you'll get every other reference in the show, and will still wonder if Childs or Braithwaite has turned on a television in the last 30 years....

The box of family heirlooms sat for six years in Susan Cadwalader Johnson's basement, untouched. Over the summer, her husband wanted to claim some space for exercise machines, so Johnson sifted through what she had been unable to face since her mother's death. The cardboard box's contents spanned five generations: the deed to the Arkansas farm, her great-great grandmother's flax apron, her grandmother's wedding dress, white, crinkly, and made of voile or organdy. "What am I going to do with all this?"

On Canaan's Side By Sebastian Barry Viking. 256 pp. $25.95 Reviewed by John Brumfield   Lilly Bere has decided to end her life after the violent death of her Army veteran grandson, recently returned from the first Gulf War. At 89, after a life whose leitmotif has been unremitting loss, she reasons, "It is only one last bit of life that I undo. Lord, it is nothing, absolutely nothing. A year or two. " But before doing so, she decides on a final bit of stock-taking - what she refers to as her "strange confession" - that takes the form of 17 daily journal entries of richly detailed, often cinematic, reminiscence that jump cuts with the present and her dwindling number of friends.

ERICH MAERZ: DIED IN SOUTH TOWER Even now, 10 years later, people ask Erich Maerz, "How do you feel?" As if his grief over losing his older brother, his best friend, could have lessened since. "What's the difference if it's been two years and two months or nine years and two days? You think I don't think about him just as much now as I did then?" asked Maerz, 37. "A lot of things in the world have changed since that day. I still don't have my brother here anymore. " Noell Maerz was 29, the oldest of three Maerz brothers who grew up in the Lansdale area.

It was brief enough to be ignored or misinterpreted - an overzealous demolition crew, perhaps, or a plumbing snafu - and left little evidence in its wake. But in that 1:51 p.m. quake that lasted for more than 30 seconds Tuesday, the tremor that rumbled beneath the Eastern Seaboard transformed the day. Businesses closed. Trains and planes screeched to a halt. Rescue workers went on alert. And as much as anything, the historic quake rattled millions of nerves across a dozen states.

Joe Blanton was like a fifth Beatle at the made-for-TV Four Aces news conference down in Clearwater in mid-February, and a mysterious elbow injury that has limited him to six starts this season has only accentuated his forgotten status. As the Phillies have soared toward a franchise record for regular-season wins behind the best pitching staff in baseball, Blanton has spent two additional months in Clearwater dealing with the first arm ailment of his life. Even now, more than two months into his second stint of the season on the disabled list, Blanton is not exactly sure what is wrong with his elbow.

Many financial advisers have the same advice for nervous investors unhinged by the stock market's wild mood swings in recent days: Take a deep breath. Come in off the ledge. Don't panic. "The worst thing somebody can do is to sell into a panic," said Alexander F. Cabot, an analyst for the Wiley Group, a Conshohocken wealth-advisory firm. Thursday's 500-point Dow plunge, followed by Friday's whipsaw ride between positive and negative territory, might induce the risk-averse to head for the exits.

JACKSON, N.J. - Robb and Alissa Alvey always dreamed of globetrotting, but neither expected to be traveling by roller coaster. Since 2005, the couple have been organizing group vacation packages centered on amusement-park tours and reviews. Now they twist, loop, and roll their way through six trips per year that have taken participants from theme-park-saturated Florida to Scandinavia and Japan. On Thursday, the Alveys, accompanied by 120 hard-core coaster enthusiasts, swung through Jackson to try out the attractions at Six Flags Great Adventure.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). You would rather make an error because you didn't yet have all of the information than make an error because you didn't use the information you already had. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Your aim is ambitious. That is what makes it so compelling to you and others. So don't let the odds diminish you. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Are you growing or merely coping? You make so much happen in a day that you can't help but wonder when the sun is setting how it's all adding up. CANCER (June 22-July 22)