If you read my bio, you know that my Aunt Cheryl is responsible for getting me into roller coasters – well, ones larger than the smaller, boardwalk style ones. Hersheypark wasn’t our only coaster outing though. We have been to a number of local parks together, but one of those parks above all else, stand out to me.

It was 1989 and I found a brochure at an Armed Forces Day show. The brochure was for a park I had never heard of – a place called Dorney Park. Looking through the brochure, my dad yelled for me to put it down and come on. I didn’t want to forget the park though since it was advertising “The World’s Tallest Wooden Roller Coaster,” Hercules. I wanted to go! I took that brochure, folded it a few times, and put it in my sock. I didn’t want my dad to throw it away since he told me to put it down. 

I kept that brochure in my room and looked at it so many times until I could show my Aunt Cheryl. When I finally did show her, my grandfather was there too – the same one who rode the rides with me at Wildwood, N.J. When he saw the brochure told us how he used to go to Dorney Park all the time, growing up in Philadelphia.

Long story short, my Aunt Cheryl agreed to take me and we rode one of my favorite roller coasters at the time, Hercules – one that she is still fond of to this day.