YO MAMA: Choo-Choo Charlie
Choo-Choo Charlie was one of those old-timey looking rides, with an art style that was colourful and quaint, yet slightly sinister and creepy. The ride consisted of just a few open train cars — each with a big, grinning face on the front — that circled around a wooden track.
The midway, with its gyrating metal parts, bright lights and screaming children, was a bit overstimulating for our two-year-old son — and us — but Choo-Choo Charlie was like a calm oasis. Charlie didn’t have any flashing lights, aggressive music, or spinning parts. There was just a little bell at the very front that one lucky child got to ring.
The problem with Charlie, however, was that Charlie wasn’t working.
When we walked by the first time, the operator was just standing there staring at Charlie while all the other rides hummed and buzzed around him. It had rained heavily that morning, turning the dirt beneath Charlie’s tracks into mud. It appeared that some of the wooden slats (technically called railway sleepers, which I know from a kids book on trains) had shifted and messed up the track.
“Toot-toot!” my son called out excitedly.
He was completely train obsessed. His favourite things in the world were his little interlocking train cars and his steam engine replica that he got from the railway museum. Choo-Choo Charlie would be his first ever carnival ride and it couldn’t be more fitting.
We told him they were just getting the train fixed up and that we would come back later for a ride. My husband and I shared a desperate glance, already fearful that Charlie might let us down.
When we returned a little while later, there seemed to be no progress on Charlie. The ride was still eerily motionless in the sea of revving monster trucks and spinning tea cups. The operator was going around the track, checking and repositioning the sleepers.
A few other families had stopped to watch with their children. Their faces were grim. We were all wet and muddy and nobody was talking very much.
My son was already clutching a fistful of red tickets for the ride and wouldn’t take his eyes off Charlie. No fair food could bribe him away. Getting aboard Charlie had become his one and only target.
Suddenly, with a great groaning of gears and clanking of metal, Choo-Choo Charlie began to roll down the track. It was a moment straight out of The Little Engine That Could. It was absolutely ridiculous for an adult woman to be as excited as I was.
We had to wait while the ride operator put Charlie through his paces, running him several times around the track, starting and stopping repeatedly to make sure he was working properly. By now, all the kids were itching to get their little bums on those train cars, but we had to wait while the operator slowly dried each rain-soaked seat so that everybody stayed dry.
At long last, the gate swung open and people started getting let through.
When it was our turn, my son finally released his grip on those little red tickets and handed them to the operator.
“Gotta measure him,” the man said, gesturing with his chin towards my son. There was not a hint of friendliness in his voice.
We had already checked that our son was the required 36 inches, but my heart tightened in my chest. How would I explain it to my kid if we were denied entry now?
My son scooched his back up against the board. The operator seemed to take an eternity determining if he was tall enough.
“Barely,” he said.
We proceeded through the gate, picked a train car and climbed aboard. We’d made it. Choo-Choo Charlie did not disappoint.
For about three glorious minutes, Charlie carried us around the track at just the right pace, brisk and steady. The bell at the very front went ding-ding and the gentle rumble of the train bumping over the rails drowned out the rest of the midway. My son grinned the whole way.
I wondered if he would still want to ride it again next year, or if its magic would be usurped by monster truck rides and roller coasters. Would he even remember Charlie?
I knew I would.
— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.
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