Magic

Isabella: On 7/13/2007 Friday, we went to Coney Island. We went on the Boardwalk and saw the beach. We went on the caterpillar roller coaster. On the coaster, we went in a big apple and that was cool. I had a Nathan's hot dog for lunch, and some Chex Mix.


My favorite rides are the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Sea Serpent roller coaster. The last thing we saw was the Cyclone, but we didn't go on the Cyclone.
I think Coney Island is special because it has a beach. Coney Island is named after a kind of bunny.



Joan: It was a Friday afternoon in July. The world (all of it that I had to worry about, anyway) was behaving as if the weekend had already begun. The weather was overcast but not rainy, very warm but not hot. Clearly, it was time to go to Coney Island. My reasons: 1. This may be the last summer that the Coney Island Boardwalk looks anything like this; 2. Jonathan's reaction, this past September, when he learned that all the amusement parks in the region would be closed for the next nine months, after we had somehow failed to visit one all summer; and 3. Because we can. There is something about the fact that we can get on the subway two blocks from our home, change trains once -- without changing platforms -- and emerge, finally, at a beach/boardwalk/amusement park, a place of great personal and national memories, that makes me feel a twinge of something that's the first step to weeping in joy. No tears are actually shed, mind you -- it's just a funny feeling in the back of my eyes.
On the very long subway ride there and back, I read Harry Potter to Isabella. I realize now that Coney Island has the qualities of a magical place: It is old, strange, mysterious, run-down, exotic. British wizards train in some big old castle, but where would American practitioners of magic gather? Behind some boarded-up door in the shadow of the Wonder Wheel, I bet.

Jonathan: I was riding on that caterpillar ride. It was so fun! I liked the Tilt-a-Whirl, except I was scared. I was screaming on the Tilt-a-Whirl. [Joan: Then he wanted to go on it again, and did.]