Class Action Park

Really, Sean. Dad did that.

My friend Jeff Terranova invited me to go to an amusement park with him and a few other friends.

I'd need a bathing suit for the water rides before changing for the dry stuff later on.

No big deal. It was 1984 and I was 15. It would be a day of fun.

My parents seemed fine with it.

We jumped in the back of a station wagon and we headed off to New Jersey.

To Action Park.

You know: Action Park, "Where You're the Center of the Action."

I went a few times through the mid-80s and, somehow, my parents didn't flinch.

I look back and laugh. Like, how -- HOW -- was I (and a lot of other kids) allowed to go there?

A few of the legends of Action Park (aka "Traction Park") had been reported, including a few deaths.

A new documentary -- Class Action Park -- details the full story of Gene Mulvihill's empire on New Jersey Route 94 in Vernon.

I still marvel at the fact that I -- a major klutz, mind you -- escaped basically unscathed. OK, sure, there was the ride called the Kamikaze where you slide down on your back, propelled by water. A certain amount of that water also rushed back at you.

Hard.

I stepped off that one, not wanting to be a party pooper, and told my mates that I'd sit out the next one while I recovered from the intense pain surging through my...er...midsection. Just a little too much rushing water to the groin.

Beyond that, shockingly, I survived. I was glorious unaware that the ponds near the motor rides had an intense amount of snakes in them, for instance.

I avoided any damage in the wave pool (though I did have a brief moment that concerned me).

I laughed when I lost my mat on Surf Hill, and just slid to the bottom. It stung but it was funny.

I noticed how cold the spring water was when I landed from the Tarzan swing or the cannonball plunge but never experienced anything bad as a result.

As for the Alpine Slide, well, I somehow mastered that, including the more intense "expert" path.

Seriously, I don't get how I was never seriously hurt...or worse!

Instead, it was a slice of normalcy in a teenagers life that including laughing, being "boys," laughing more, girls, eating, even more laughing, flirting, and being overall dumb teenagers.

We drove go karts and played mini golf and arcade games and whatever else there was to do.

But the documentary highlights just what a mess Action Park really was.

Besides the snakes, there was the famous Cannonball Loop along with the lax security, overall "frat boy" atmosphere, and as I said, the occasional death.

No big deal.

The documentary is a fascinating look back at all of it (and, again, it's amazing to think I basically did all of this), as well as the stuff we didn't know about. It's really well done and, well, it's basically all true.

If you have HBO Max, or can watch it with a free trial, it's worth the time. I almost want my son to see it, if only to see that Dad wasn't always...

Dad.